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As people age, they tend to spend more time indoors, and the colours in their surroundings may significantly impact their mood and overall well-being. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to provide informed guidance on colour choices, irrespective of age group. To work towards informed choices, we investigated whether the associations between colours and emotions observed in younger individuals also apply to older adults. We recruited 7393 participants, aged between 16 and 88 years and coming from 31 countries. Each participant associated 12 colour terms with 20 emotion concepts and rated the intensity of each associated emotion. Different age groups exhibited highly similar patterns of colour-emotion associations (average similarity coefficient of .97), with subtle yet meaningful age-related differences. Adolescents associated the greatest number but the least positively biased emotions with colours. Older participants associated a smaller number but more intense and more positive emotions with all colour terms, displaying a positivity effect. Age also predicted arousal and power biases, varying by colour. Findings suggest parallels in colour-emotion associations between younger and older adults, with subtle but significant age-related variations. Future studies should next assess whether colour-emotion associations reflect what people actually feel when exposed to colour., (© 2023 The British Psychological Society.)

Colour-emotion association data show a universal consistency in colour-emotion associations, apart from emotion associations with PURPLE. Possibly, its heterogeneity was due to different cognates used as basic colour terms between languages. We analysed emotion associations with PURPLE across 30 populations, 28 countries, and 16 languages (4,008 participants in total). Crucially, these languages used the cognates of purple, lilac, or violet to denote the basic PURPLE category. We found small but systematic affective differences between these cognates. They were ordered as purple > lilac > violet on valence, arousal, and power biases. Statistically, the cognate purple was the most strongly biased towards associations with positive emotions, and lilac was biased more strongly than violet. Purple was more biased towards high power emotions than violet, but cognates did not differ on arousal biases. Additionally, affective biases differed by population, suggesting high variability within each cognate. Thus, cognates partly account for inconsistencies in the meaning of PURPLE, without explaining their origins., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Many of us "see red," "feel blue," or "turn green with envy." Are such color-emotion associations fundamental to our shared cognitive architecture, or are they cultural creations learned through our languages and traditions? To answer these questions, we tested emotional associations of colors in 4,598 participants from 30 nations speaking 22 native languages. Participants associated 20 emotion concepts with 12 color terms. Pattern-similarity analyses revealed universal color-emotion associations (average similarity coefficient r = .88). However, local differences were also apparent. A machine-learning algorithm revealed that nation predicted color-emotion associations above and beyond those observed universally. Similarity was greater when nations were linguistically or geographically close. This study highlights robust universal color-emotion associations, further modulated by linguistic and geographic factors. These results pose further theoretical and empirical questions about the affective properties of color and may inform practice in applied domains, such as well-being and design.

Researchers often study recognition of single emotions. Realistic faces, however, display several emotions in quick sequence or at the same time (mixed emotions). This likely causes interindividual differences in peoples' reactions to the same situations and stimuli. We studied such differences using 11 self-portraits painted by Armand Henrion (1875–1958), in which he depicts himself as a Pierrot clown displaying different affective states. Thirty-eight adult participants (15 men) saw the self-portraits twice (one brief, then one unlimited presentation). After the first brief presentation (1–2 s), participants (i) selected the most prominent emotion (out of 20) and (ii) rated the intensity of this emotion. After the second unlimited presentation, participants performed the same selections and ratings before describing what could have caused the facial expression (qualitative data). Results confirmed that Armand Henrion's self-portraits display mixed emotions: participants selected diverse emotions, sometimes differing in valence. Participants selected comparable emotions between presentations but rated them as more intense the second time. The qualitative answers complemented the selected emotions. For instance, when some participants chose 'disgust', others chose 'sadness' for the same self-portrait. The qualitative answer matched this choice, indicating that the character either "ate or drank something they don't like" or "lost something or someone". We conclude that Armand Henrion's self-portraits provide a promising set of facial stimuli to investigate mixed emotions. Each self-portrait displays diverse emotions of varying intensities and they are realistic because they could all be linked to possible situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colours and emotions are associated in languages and traditions. Some of us may convey sadness by saying feeling blue or by wearing black clothes at funerals. The first example is a conceptual experience of colour and the second example is an immediate perceptual experience of colour. To investigate whether one or the other type of experience more strongly drives colour-emotion associations, we tested 64 congenitally red-green colour-blind men and 66 non-colour-blind men. All participants associated 12 colours, presented as terms or patches, with 20 emotion concepts, and rated intensities of the associated emotions. We found that colour-blind and noncolour-blind men associated similar emotions with colours, irrespective of whether colours were conveyed via terms (r D .82) or patches (r D .80). The colour-emotion associations and the emotion intensities were not modulated by participants' severity of colour blindness. Hinting at some additional, although minor, role of actual colour perception, the consistencies in associations for colour terms and patches were higher in non-colour-blind than colour-blind men. Together, these results suggest that colouremotion associations in adults do not require immediate perceptual colour experiences, as conceptual experiences are sufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular opinion holds that color has specific affective meaning. Brighter, more chromatic, and warm colors were conceptually linked to positive stimuli and darker, less chromatic, and cool colors to negative stimuli. Whether such systematic color associations exist with actually mood felt remains to be tested. We experimentally induced four moods—joy, relaxation, fear, and sadness—in a between‐subject design (N = 96). Subsequently, we asked participants to select a color, from an unrestricted sample, best representing their current mood. Color choices differed between moods on hue, lightness, and chroma. Yellow hues were systematically associated with joy while yellow‐green hues with relaxation. Lighter colors were matched to joy and relaxation (positive moods) than fear and sadness (negative moods). Most chromatic colors were matched to joy, then relaxation, fear, and sadness. We conclude that color choices represent felt mood to some extent, after accounting for a relatively low specificity for color‐mood associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When processing facial emotion, most individuals are right hemisphere dominant; however there is variability in this pattern with males typically being more strongly lateralised than females. Relationship status has been found to influence the processing of facial stimuli in women, and therefore, in this research the lateralised processing of facial emotion is considered whilst taking into account the participant’s relationship status and sex. Using the chimeric faces test, with both infant and adult facial stimuli, it was shown that partnered participants, but not single participants, were more strongly lateralised for the processing of adult stimuli than infant stimuli, and that partnered women did not show any hemispheric bias. These findings suggest that the neuropsychological processing of emotion may change dependent on an individual’s relationship status, and are discussed in terms of the possible evolutionary significance of infant faces for individuals who are in a relationship and who wish to have children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many, colours convey affective meaning. Popular opinion assumes that perception of colour is crucial to influence emotions. However, scientific studies test colour–emotion relationships by presenting colours as patches or terms. When using patches, researchers put great effort into colour presentation. When using terms, researchers have much less control over the colour participants think of. In this between-subjects study, we tested whether emotion associations with colour differ between terms and patches. Participants associated 20 emotion concepts, loading on valence, arousal, and power dimensions, with 12 colours presented as patches (n = 54) or terms (n = 78). We report high similarity in the pattern of associations of specific emotion concepts with terms and patches (r =.82), for all colours except purple (r =.−23). We also observed differences for black, which is associated with more negative emotions and of higher intensity when presented as a term than a patch. Terms and patches differed little in terms of valence, arousal, and power dimensions. Thus, results from studies on colour–emotion relationships using colour terms or patches should be largely comparable. It is possible that emotions are associated with colour concepts rather than particular perceptions or words of colour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]