Feeling blue or seeing red? Similar patterns of emotion associations with colour patches and colour terms
Jonauskaite, Parraga, Quiblier and Mohr had participants rate 20 concepts on valence, arousal and power for 12 colours shown as patches (54 people) or as terms (78 people). Concept-specific patterns were highly similar across the two formats for all colours except purple, and black produced more negative, more intense emotions as a term than as a patch. The authors conclude that colour-emotion associations may depend more on the words than on the perception of colour. i-Perception 11(1), 2020.
Jonauskaite, Parraga, Quiblier and Mohr had participants rate 20 concepts on valence, arousal and power for 12 colours shown as patches (54 people) or as terms (78 people). Concept-specific patterns were highly similar across the two formats for all colours except purple, and black produced more negative, more intense emotions as a term than as a patch. The authors conclude that colour-emotion associations may depend more on the words than on the perception of colour. i-Perception 11(1), 2020.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex record, 2026-11-03.
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i-Perception, 11(1). doi:10.1177/2041669520902484. Read at the level of the abstract.