Cross-Cultural Color-Odor Associations

Abstract

Colors and odors are associated; for instance, people typically match the smell of strawberries to the color pink or red. These associations are forms of crossmodal correspondences. Recently, there has been discussion about the extent to which these correspondences arise for structural reasons (i.e., an inherent mapping between color and odor), statistical reasons (i.e., covariance in experience), and/or semantically-mediated reasons (i.e., stemming from language). The present study probed this question by testing color-odor correspondences in 6 different cultural groups (Dutch, Netherlands-residing-Chinese, German, Malay, Malaysian-Chinese, and US residents), using the same set of 14 odors and asking participants to make congruent and incongruent color choices for each odor. We found consistent patterns in color choices for each odor within each culture, showing that participants were making non-random color-odor matches. We used representational dissimilarity analysis to probe for variations in the patterns of color-odor associations across cultures; we found that US and German participants had the most similar patterns of associations, followed by German and Malay participants. The largest group differences were between Malay and Netherlands-resident Chinese participants and between Dutch and Malaysian-Chinese participants. We conclude that culture plays a role in color-odor crossmodal associations, which likely arise, at least in part, through experience.

On the Colours of Odours

“…These intriguing correspondences appear to be both robust across individuals (within a culture, see Levitan et al 2014) and stable over time (Gilbert et al 1996). The results of the present study confirm the existence of a number of odourcolour associations that are common to participants from France and Britain (which is critical given the replication crisis that some fields are currently facing, e.g.…”

Critical comparison of selected olfactometric methods for the determination of impact odorants. Proposal of a new representation of olfactometric results

“…Results obtained in this study are closed to the ones reported in literature, where panelists have smelt odorants[30][31][32][33][34][35][36] (Supplementary…”

“…29,30 In most of the studies on odor/color correlation, panelists are first asked to smell prior to attribute a color. A cross-modal relationship between both parameters has already been demonstrated.…”

Why Should We All Be Cultural Psychologists? Lessons From the Study of Social Cognition

“…I do not intend to spend much space to argue against this erroneous assumption, as numerous theories and abundant studies have shown that human behavior unfolds as a dynamic transaction between an active individual and his changing environment (e.g., Coll & Marks, 2009; Hermans, 2001; Hong et al, 2000; Kitayama & Cohen D., 2007; Shweder et al, 1998; Sternberg, 2014). Many “basic” psychological processes and constructs for which culture is typically assumed to be irrelevant, such as neuronal functioning (Chiao et al, 2013; Park & Huang, 2010), sensation (Levitan, Ren, Woods, Boesveldt, Chan, McKenzie et al, 2014; Yeshurun & Sobel, 2010), visual illusions (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003; McCauley & Henrich, 2006), face processing (Kelly, Liu, Rodger, Miellet, Ge, & Caldara, 2011), and color perception (Roberson, Davidoff, Davies, & Shapiro, 2005; Taylor, Clifford, & Franklin, 2013), have been shown to be sensitive to cultural influences. Even simple taste preferences are subject to local community practices rather than being part of human genetic composition as commonly assumed.…”