Emotional Response to Color Across Media Hyeon-Jeong Suk, 1 * Hans Irtel 2 1 Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, #373-1 Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea 2 Department of Psychology, Universitaet Mannheim, EO 265, Schloss D-68131, Mannheim, Germany Received 17 March 2008; revised 31 August 2008; accepted 5 September 2008 Abstract: In this study, the characteristics of emotional responses to color are explored in two empirical studies. In particular, the relationship between color attributes and emotional dimensions—valence, arousal, and domi- nance—is analyzed. To account for the cognitive quantity of color, 36 color stimuli were selected following hue and tone categorizations and based on the CIELAB LCh sys- tem. In one experiment, the colors were presented on A5-size glossy paper whereas the identical colors were displayed on CRT monitors in the other experiment. In both experiments, the subjects assessed the emotional responses to each color stimulus using a Self-Assessment- Manikin (SAM), which consists of three rows of five picto- grams illustrating the three dimensions of emotion, respectively. The empirical results provide evidence that the patterns of affective judgment of colors can be pro- filed in terms of the three dimensions of emotion (Reli- ability coefficient, Cronbach’s alpha [ 0.7). All three attributes of colors, i.e. hue, Chroma, and Lightness, influenced the emotional responses (repeated measure- ment One-way ANOVA, P \ 0.05), and especially, Chroma was always positively correlated with each of the three emotional dimensions (r [ 0.60 P \ 0.01). More- over, the results indicate that emotional responses to color vary more strongly with regard to tone than to hue categories. Comparing the SAM ratings between the two experiments, a systemic explanation has yet to be found to conclude that there is a media effect on the emotional responses to colors. Furthermore, the process of affective judgment of colors and the limit of color as an emotion elicitor are discussed. Ó 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 00, 000 – 000, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20554 Key words: color perception; emotional response; media; Self-Assessment-Manikins (SAMs); color categorization INTRODUCTION The perception of color is essential to human’s visual ex- perience and is the most powerful information channel among human senses, 1 Goldstein 2 distinguished viewing color from other visual experiences proclaiming that the connection between the central characteristic of the physi- cal properties and the experience of color is arbitrary, unlike some visual qualities such as shape, depth, loca- tion, and movement. This makes color a compelling vis- ual cue for persuasive communication purposes. 3–5 In view of the foregoing, much concern has been directed to- ward research on color affectivity, and thus the emotional response to color has been investigated in multiple disci- plines. Regarding concerns across disciplines, McCann 6 pointed out the psychological distinction between color sensation and color perception. According to McCann, color sensation concerns whether colors have the same physical properties, i.e. wavelength. A successful sensa- tion model, for instance, must render the differences of color hue and visible gradients because of illumination, whereas a successful model of color perception must report the recognition thereof. In the case of color percep- tion, color is a product of the brain’s interpretation of the visual sensory information that it receives. Affective Judgment of Perceived Color Empirical studies of emotional responses to color have dealt with color as stimuli in terms of either a psycho- physical quantity (color sensation) or cognitive quantity (color perception). The former takes advantage of the numeric order of the stimuli, nevertheless, it fails to pro- vide a cognitive quantity of color perception. In a study by Valdez and Merhabian 7 on the affective judgment of *Correspondence to: Dr. Hyeon-Jeong Suk (e-mail: h.j.suk@kaist.ac.kr). V V C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Volume 00, Number 0, Month 2010 1