Mapping Emotion on a Color Space

鍾欣倫、瑪雅．嘎礌．哈雅萬

Abstract

The project aims to find the association between color and emotion. To confirm the existence of such bond, participants were asked to write down emotion terms linked to a color chip before main experiment. The main experiment tested participants by using 280 color chips from Natural Color System was pasted on three neutral gray board. Participants selected the chips that they consider to have a connection with the emotion term displayed on the screen. Afterwards, factor analysis and cluster analysis was adopted as tools. Then first, determined the unique mechanisms underlying color-emotion association. Second, mapped the association on the World Color Survey color space. The results show that emotion terms can be divided into 6 factors, while the factor 3 and 6 occupy the same color space and “surprise” was not included in any factor. The knowledge of such information not only can further our understanding of cognitive and affective processing in human mind but also find application in many fields, such as graphic design, visual arts, user experiences, and art therapy.

Research Purpose

1. To seek the distinctive divisions of emotion words.
2. To observe the relationship between basic emotions and the categories.
3. To visualize the relationship between color and emotion on the World Color Survey color space.

Methodology

Conclusions and Future Work

According to the result of data analysis, we suggest that each factor will occupy corresponding space on the World Color Space:

1. anger – impetuousness mainly occupies the dark-red region.
2. fear – disgust mainly occupies the dark region including red, orange, and yellow.
3. happiness – delight mainly occupies the light-yellow and light-orange.
4. sadness – melancholy mainly occupies dark-blue region.
5. love – shame occupies a variety of pink and red.
6. terror – anxiety mainly occupies the dark region containing dark yellow and green.

Additional findings are discovered through the survey. Firstly, factor 5 and 6 are not included in the basic color terms. However, the basic emotion term ‘surprise’ is not observed as an independent category in our experiment. Secondly, ‘fear’ and ‘disgust’ are packed in the same factor. Thirdly, factor 1 and 2 are highly overlap on the color space. Lastly, comparing different lightness on the color space, factor 3 and 6 are distribute both on the yellow region, but different lightness. The lighter part is related to happiness and delight, more a positive emotion, whereas darker part related to terror and anxiety, more a negative emotion.

In the future, the mechanism behind emotion terms in the same category and comparing the color responses in a group of synonyms can be observed. In addition, we can attempt to do a cross-culture survey and analyze the difference in between.