Colour-Temperature Correspondences: When Reactions to Thermal Stimuli Are Influenced by Colour

Abstract

In our daily lives, information concerning temperature is often provided by means of colour cues, with red typically being associated with warm/hot, and blue with cold. While such correspondences have been known about for many years, they have primarily been studied using subjective report measures. Here we examined this correspondence using two more objective response measures. First, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a test designed to assess the strength of automatic associations between different concepts in a given individual. Second, we used a priming task that involved speeded target discrimination in order to assess whether priming colour or thermal information could invoke the crossmodal association. The results of the IAT confirmed that the association exists at the level of response selection, thus indicating that a participant’s responses to colour or thermal stimuli are influenced by the colour-temperature correspondence. The results of the priming experiment revealed that priming a colour affected thermal discrimination reaction times (RTs), but thermal cues did not influence colour discrimination responses. These results may therefore provide important clues as to the level of processing at which such colour-temperature correspondences are represented.

Grounding language in the neglected senses of touch, taste, and smell

“…There may also be cultural beliefs that lead to odour-temperature associations, such as the use of temperature in medicine . Similar grounding is also likely for taste-related language, as taste and flavour are also strongly associated with colour (see Spence, Levitan, Shankar, & Zampini, 2010), and temperature (Ho, Van Doorn, Kawabe, Watanabe, & Spence, 2014). Although people can make consistent associations between texture and colour (Ludwig & Simner, 2013), colour is not found to affect texture judgments of food (Christensen, 1983).…”

Predicting Context-dependent Cross-modal Associations with Dimension-specific Polarity Attributions. Part 2: Red and Valence

“…However, a red-blue opposition is more commonly used to express temperature differences (e.g., the hot vs cold tap in a kitchen). Therefore, red in the context of blue is generally associated with warmth (e.g., Bennett & Rey, 1972;Ho, van Doorn, Kawabe, Watanabe, & Spence, 2014).…”

The pleasant heat? Evidence for thermal-emotional implicit associations occurring with semantic and physical thermal stimulation

“…crossmodal associations (e.g., Ho, Van Doorn, Kawabe, Watanabe, and Spence, 2014;23 Parise and Spence, 2012). The foundation of the IAT is that it is easier to map two 24 concepts into the same response key when they are internally associated (congruent 25 THERMAL-EMOTIONAL ASSOCIATION 5 situations) than when they are internally unrelated (incongruent situations).…”