Texture Affects Color Emotion

Several studies have recorded color emotions in subjects viewing uniform color (UC) samples. We conduct an experiment to measure and model how these color emotions change when texture is added to the color samples. Using a computer monitor, our subjects arrange samples along four scales: warm–cool, masculine–feminine, hard–soft, and heavy–light. Three sample types of increasing visual complexity are used: UC, grayscale textures, and color textures (CTs). To assess the intraobserver variability, the experiment is repeated after 1 week. Our results show that texture fully determines the responses on the Hard-Soft scale, and plays a role of decreasing weight for the masculine–feminine, heavy–light, and warm–cool scales. Using some 25,000 observer responses, we derive color emotion functions that predict the group-averaged scale responses from the samples’ color and texture parameters. For UC samples, the accuracy of our functions is significantly higher (average R 1⁄4 0.88) than that of previously reported functions applied to our data. The functions derived for CT samples have an accuracy of R 1⁄4 0.80. We conclude that when textured samples are used in color emotion studies, the psychological responses may be strongly affected by texture. 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 36, 426 – 436, 2011; Published online 12 November 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI