An ecological valence theory of human color preferences
By Stephen E. Palmer, Karen B. Schloss. 2010
140 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Color preference is an important aspect of visual experience, butlittle is known about why people in general like some colors morethan others. Previous research suggested explanations based onbiologicaladaptations[HurlbertAC,LingYL(2007)CurrBiol17:623–625] and color-emotions [Ou L-C, Luo MR, Woodcock A, Wright A(2004) Color Res Appl 29:381–389]. In this article we articulate anecological valence theory in which color preferences arise frompeople’s average affective responses to color-associated objects.An empirical test provides strong support for this theory: Peoplelike colors strongly associated with objects they like (e.g., blueswith clear skies and clean water) and dislike colors strongly associ-ated with objects they dislike (e.g., browns with feces and rottenfood).Relativetoalternativetheories,theecologicalvalencetheoryboth fits the data better (even with fewer free parameters) andprovides a more plausible, comprehensive causal explanation ofcolor preferences.
Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0d8e8c461cb0387fbfc4decce7461b3fabceff0f
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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
In Sensory Systems
In Social Psychology
Citations in the corpus
- Meta-Analysis of Emotional Designs in Multimedia Learning: A Replication and Extension Study (2020, background): “Studies show that using anthropomorphic graphics and warm, bright, highly saturated colors as design features can elicit positive emotions in learners (Berry and McArthur 1985; Palmer and Schloss 2010).”
- A cross‐cultural comparison of colour emotion for two‐colour combinations (2012, result): “In addition, male observers were found to prefer lower-lightness colour pairs more than female observers, a result that agrees with Guilford and Smith’s study(76) but disagrees with Schloss and Palmer’s; the latter showed little gender difference in lightness preference.(75) In terms of hue preferen”