Understanding Responses to Materials and Colors in Interiors Beg € um Ulusoy,* Nilg € un Olgunt € urk Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Bilkent University Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Ankara, Turkey Received 26 January 2016; revised 16 June 2016; accepted 20 June 2016 Abstract: This article investigates the free associations of materials and colors in the context of interior architec- ture. Materials and colors rarely appear alone in interi- ors; therefore, in the scope of this study, the researchers explored material pairs and color pairs in addition to single materials and single colors. To elicit free associa- tions from these interior design elements, 192 randomly selected volunteers participated in an experiment using a group of material (fabric, timber, plasterboard) and color (red, green, white) models under controlled conditions. The results contribute to an increased understanding of the associations between the concepts of materials and colors in interiors. While, each model was associated with sensory descriptors, only some models were associ- ated with symbolic or affective descriptors. Single materi- als were related to different descriptors in interiors on their own, but when they were paired they were associat- ed with fewer affective descriptors. The results showed that color pairs were always associated with all types of descriptors with an exception of red and green color pair, which was not mentioned with affective descriptors. The study findings are expected to be beneficial for inte- rior architects, architects, product designers and researchers who want to shape and investigate a user’s experience of interiors. V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 42, 261–272, 2017; Published Online 9 July 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/col.22072 Key words: design; color; material; free associations INTRODUCTION Seeing is the first human sense that dominates perception and knowledge. Visual abilities are developed before words; almost every person first sees and recognizes his or her environment and then defines each element of it according to what he or she sees. 1 Words are taught by the family or the network, defined by their respective cul- ture and society and are associated with objects, the envi- ronment, and the surroundings. Materials and colors, which are substantial characteristics of any environment, are associated with perceptional, emotional, and cognitive processes. Individuals with full visual ability see materials and colors and define their environments by them. The Stroop effect, which results in longer or shorter reaction time of reading or misreading words due to their color, 2 is an example of the dominant influence that visual stimuli have on people’s perception and knowledge. Wastiels et al. stated that people’s overall perception is dominated by the visual sense in interiors. 3 Language is related with vision (see Fig. 1) 4 and people’s associations between the two show how they perceive and experience interiors. Materials and colors, as fundamental elements of interior architecture, also affect the user’s perception. To explore the associations between these elements, the researchers embraced the User Conceptual Model, which “constitute an inventory of the meaning that a community of users have available, can easily acquire, and are likely to enact, given the possibilities that artifacts suggest” 5 [p. 108]. This model “explains experiences that users bring to artifacts they intend to use” 5 [p. 105]. Su and Yang stated that “basic emotions are original perceptions of products that can be expressed when stakeholders interact with product” 6 [p. 109]. Considering the user or stakeholder as a focus of design decisions, the designer should obtain proper knowl- edge about the associations of design elements. Identifying any design with its stakeholder also calls for linguistic ele- ments; because users define artifacts with words (see Fig. 2). Therefore, instead of asking directly about the meanings and emotions elicited by materials and colors, the research- ers in the current study utilized the free-association method for participants encountering artifacts. Free association as a method of this study was preferred because it elicits more diverse results than other methods such as interviews, *Correspondence to: Beg€ um Ulusoy (e-mail: ulusoy@bilkent.edu.tr) V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Volume 42, Number 2, April 2017 261