Cross-regional comparison of colour emotions Part II: Qualitative analysis

Colour emotion is a feeling or emotion induced in our brains when we look at a colour. In this article, the colour emotional responses obtained by conducting visual experiments in different regions, namely Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand, using a set of 218 colour samples are compared using a quantitative approach in an attempt to study the influence of different cultural and geographical locations. Twelve pairs of colour emotions described in opponent words were used. These word pairs are warm–cool, light–dark, deep–pale, heavy–light, vivid–sombre, gaudy–plain, striking–subdued, dynamic–passive, distinct–vague, transparent–turbid, soft–hard, and strong–weak. These word pairs represent the fundamental emotional response of human beings toward colour. The influences of lightness and chroma were found to be much more important than that of the hue on the colour emotions studied. Good correlations of colour emotions among these three regions in East Asia were found, with the best ones for colour emotion pairs being light–dark and heavy–light. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 29, 451–457, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20062