Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Effects of color-emotion association on facial expression judgments”, by Takei, A. and Imaizumi, S. (2022), in which authors carry out a couple of experiments to investigate how some colors are associated to emotions when it comes about inferring these from facial expressions.
Human beings often express emotions by linking them to colors in our day-to-day conversations. For example, in English and Japanese, the color blue is widely used to express sadness (“I’m feeling blue”).
However, we also associate emotions with the visual perception of colors. For example, in WhatsApp we can use a red face emoticon to transmit anger. In fact, it is possible that because anger increases blood flow to the face, making it red, people have learned to see this color in an angry face.
All these linguistic and perceptual associations are part of the color-emotion associations.
Conceptual metaphor theory could explain the color-emotion association. According to this theory, to understand abstract concepts related to thought and action, humans apply the structures of other concrete concepts to specific abstract concepts, which are clear perceptual experiences. In other words, the metaphorical structures of concepts such as “sadness is blue” and “anger is red” facilitate the understanding of concepts related to emotions.
Because of such associations, color perception can remind people of corresponding emotions and even bias their judgments about the emotional stimuli they receive.
For example, in a 2020 study, participants tended to associate anger and love with red, sadness with gray, and joy with yellow. In another 2012 study, words written in red were linked to anger more quickly than words written in blue. This suggests that red is associated with anger and would improve linguistic processing related to it.
In terms of social cognition, it is important for humans to understand the emotional states of others. Facial expressions are especially useful for this, but other resources are also used. Similarly, the colors associated with emotions are also close to the recognition and judgment of emotions combined with facial expressions.
In a 2013 experiment, participants categorized angry faces against red, blue, or gray backgrounds. The results showed that the judgment of angry faces was faster against a red background, suggesting that the color facilitates the recognition of facial expressions.
In another experiment, this one from 2020, participants categorized images of faces and emoticons that represented happiness and anger on a red or green background. Images of anger were re-categorized more quickly correctly on the red background, the same thing happening with happiness and the color green.
Although previous studies like these have suggested color-emotion associations, some have been controversial, such as sadness and the color blue. In some countries there is an association between them, but in others it is associated with positive emotions. In a 2020 study it was suggested that gray was more related to sadness than the color blue, but this idea still needs to be explored further.
To delve into all this and find out which colors some emotions are associated with, the authors carried out a couple of experiments.
The first of them was carried out with 20 subjects and photographs of people showing happiness and sadness were used. They were placed on a yellow, blue or gray colored background, and the participants were asked to ignore the colors and judge whether the face expressed happiness or sadness.
Experiment two, involving 19 people, was the same as the first, except that the background color was shown slightly later than the face, superimposing the facial stimulus on the color stimulus.
The results suggest that yellow, which was thought to be associated with happiness, facilitates the judgment of happy facial expression, which is consistent with previous literature.
However, although blue and/or gray were expected to be associated with sadness, the results did not support this idea.
This is where conceptual metaphor theory comes in again, with the idea that “happiness is light” and “sadness is darkness.”
The contrast of joy and sadness can be interpreted not only as a different emotional valence, but also as extreme differences in brightness.
The results can be interpreted as suggesting that yellow facilitates the judgment of happiness because it activates a metaphorical “light-happiness” association that bright colors provide.
On the other hand, gray and blue might not be colors symbolic of darkness and, therefore, might not activate the “darkness-sadness” association.
Needs to be said that, thanks to experiment 2, it is suggested that the color-emotion association is stronger when color and emotion are perceptually experienced simultaneously.
Authors conclude that it would be very interesting to continue investigating how the luminance and brightness of colors affect the perception of emotions.
If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it influences our personal relationships, visit our Nonverbal Communication Certificate, a 100% online program certificated by the Heritage University (Washington) with special discounts for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.
Interpreting nonverbal behavior improves your communication skills in any environment. If you’re interested in learning more about this fascinating field, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is ideal for you. Study online from anywhere in the world and receive an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring high-quality international education. All of this from just $208 USD per month.
