The Influence of Colors on the Psychological Image of the Wooden Interior: Application of the Image Analysis in Consideration of the Accent Color

Various materials are used for the interior space, and therefore various colors of them appear there. To design visually comfortable living space, an examination about the relations between the colors of the interior materials such as wood and the influence of them on our visual impression is very important. In this study colorimetric features of various interior images are evaluated numerically and the relation between those values and our visual impression of “warm” is discussed. Thirty seven of interior images were prepared as specimens, and questionnaires regarding visual warmth of the specimens were performed to 39 subjects in Experiment A, and to 30 subjects in Experiment B, respectively. The specimen set for Experiment A was composed of more colorful interior images than for Experiment B. To calculate the colorimetric features of the interior images, a digital color image processing method according to sRGB system was adopted. The method made possible the transformation from RGB data to L*a*b* values of LAB color system in every one pixel. By the comparison of the result of both experiments, the effective hue index that was based on a modified hue angle weighed by a metric chroma value was devised. The index could express visual warmth of the interior images which accent colors, vivid red, blue, and so on, existed in well.