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An ecological valence theory of human color preference.

ABSTRACT: Color preference is an important aspect of visual experience, but little is known about why people in general like some colors more than others. Previous research suggested explanations based on biological adaptations [Hurlbert AC, Ling YL (2007) Curr Biol 17:623-625] and color-emotions [Ou L-C, Luo MR, Woodcock A, Wright A (2004) Color Res Appl 29:381-389]. In this article we articulate an ecological valence theory in which color preferences arise from people's average affective responses to color-associated objects. An empirical test provides strong support for this theory: People like colors strongly associated with objects they like (e.g., blues with clear skies and clean water) and dislike colors strongly associated with objects they dislike (e.g., browns with feces and rotten food). Relative to alternative theories, the ecological valence theory both fits the data better (even with fewer free parameters) and provides a more plausible, comprehensive causal explanation of color preferences.

SUBMITTER: Palmer SE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2889342 | biostudies-other | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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An ecological valence theory of human color preference.

Palmer Stephen E SE Schloss Karen B KB

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20100426 19

Color preference is an important aspect of visual experience, but little is known about why people in general like some colors more than others. Previous research suggested explanations based on biological adaptations [Hurlbert AC, Ling YL (2007) Curr Biol 17:623-625] and color-emotions [Ou L-C, Luo MR, Woodcock A, Wright A (2004) Color Res Appl 29:381-389]. In this article we articulate an ecological valence theory in which color preferences arise from people's average affective responses to co ...[more]

PMID: 20421475

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Project description:The system for colorimetry adopted by the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) in 1931, along with its subsequent improvements, represents a family of light mixture models that has served well for many decades for stimulus specification and reproduction when highly controlled color standards are important. Still, with regard to color appearance many perceptual and cognitive factors are known to contribute to color similarity, and, in general, to all cognitive judgments of color. Using experimentally obtained odd-one-out triad similarity judgments from 52 observers, we demonstrate that CIE-based models can explain a good portion (but not all) of the color similarity data. Color difference quantified by CIELAB ?E explained behavior at levels of 81% (across all colors), 79% (across red colors), and 66% (across blue colors). We show that the unexplained variation cannot be ascribed to inter- or intra-individual variations among the observers, and points to the presence of additional factors shared by the majority of responders. Based on this, we create a quantitative model of a lexicographic semiorder type, which shows how different perceptual and cognitive influences can trade-off when making color similarity judgments. We show that by incorporating additional influences related to categorical and lightness and saturation factors, the model explains more of the triad similarity behavior, namely, 91% (all colors), 90% (reds), and 87% (blues). We conclude that distance in a CIE model is but the first of several layers in a hierarchy of higher-order cognitive influences that shape color triad choices. We further discuss additional mitigating influences outside the scope of CIE modeling, which can be incorporated in this framework, including well-known influences from language, stimulus set effects, and color preference bias. We also discuss universal and cultural aspects of the model as well as non-uniformity of the color space with respect to different cultural biases.

Dataset Information

An ecological valence theory of human color preference.

Publications

An ecological valence theory of human color preference.

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