P1-10: The Association between Colors and Emotions

Abstract

Wexner (1954 Journal of Applied Psychology 38 432–435) demonstrated colors were associated with specific emotions. Colors have many meanings, such as that red can lead to induce positive or negative emotions (Kaya & Epps, 2011 College Student Journal 38 396–406). This study extends previous findings and aims to investigate two questions, (1) whether colors are associated with the emotions of pictures in IAPS (International Affective Picture System) and (2) whether perceiving IAPS consciously and unconsciously has different emotion associations. We replaced facial expressions with pictures of IAPS as stimuli. Five colors (black, red, yellow, blue, and white) and 3 categories of IAPS (fear, awe, and amusement) were manipulated in this study. Pictures were displayed in different durations to manipulate conscious (250 ms) and unconscious (33 ms) visual stimuli (Manuel & Pedro, 2009 Behavior Research Method 41 184–191) in two experiments. Participants were required to select the most suitable color at their first glance when the pictures of IAPS were presented, and vice versa. Results showed that overall association between colors and pictures of IAPS was weak but the association pattern was meaningful. It concluded (1) black and red colors are associated with the fearful emotion, and blue color is associated with the happy emotion; (2) white colors do not associate with the fear emotion, which is incongruent with the previous study (Osvaldo & Paul, 2007 Colour: Design & Creativity 1 1–20); (3) participants did not perform differently between conscious and unconscious stimulus conditions.