Perception of color emotions for single colors in red-green defective observers

Abstract

It is estimated that inherited red-green color deficiency, which involves both the protan and deutan deficiency types, is common in men. For red-green defective observers, some reddish colors appear desaturated and brownish, unlike those seen by normal observers. Despite its prevalence, few studies have investigated the effects that red-green color deficiency has on the psychological properties of colors (color emotions). The current study investigated the influence of red-green color deficiency on the following six color emotions: cleanliness, freshness, hardness, preference, warmth, and weight. Specifically, this study aimed to: (1) reveal differences between normal and red-green defective observers in rating patterns of six color emotions; (2) examine differences in color emotions related to the three cardinal channels in human color vision; and (3) explore relationships between color emotions and color naming behavior. Thirteen men and 10 women with normal vision and 13 men who were red-green defective performed both a color naming task and an emotion rating task with 32 colors from the Berkeley Color Project (BCP). Results revealed noticeable differences in the cleanliness and hardness ratings between the normal vision observers, particularly in women, and red-green defective observers, which appeared mainly for colors in the orange to cyan range, and in the preference and warmth ratings for colors with cyan and purple hues. Similarly, naming errors also mainly occurred in the cyan colors. A regression analysis that included the three cone-contrasts (i.e., red-green, blue-yellow, and luminance) as predictors significantly accounted for variability in color emotion ratings for the red-green defective observers as much as the normal individuals. Expressly, for warmth ratings, the weight of the red-green opponent channel was significantly lower in color defective observers than in normal participants. In addition, the analyses for individual warmth ratings in the red-green defective group revealed that luminance cone-contrast was a significant predictor in most red-green-defective individuals. Together, these results suggest that red-green defective observers tend to rely on the blue-yellow channel and luminance to compensate for the weak sensitivity of long- and medium-wavelength (L-M) cone-contrasts, when rating color warmth.

Colour-emotion associations in individuals with red-green colour blindness

“…This consistency simplifies direct comparisons between studies. The second strength is that we recruited a large number of congenitally colour-blind men, at least when comparing our sample size to previous studies ( Shepard & Cooper, 1992 ; Paramei, 1996 ; Paramei, Bimler & Cavonius, 1998 ; Bonnardel, 2006 ; Moreira et al, 2014 ; Álvaro et al, 2015 ; Álvaro et al, 2017 ; Sato & Inoue, 2016 ; Saysani, Corballis & Corballis, 2018a ). By default, a larger sample size provides more representative colour-emotion associations.…”

“…Perhaps, colour preferences and colour-emotion associations are guided by different mechanisms. In fact, colour preferences have been hypothesised ( Schloss, 2015 ) and empirically demonstrated ( Álvaro et al, 2015 ; Baek et al, 2015 ; Sato & Inoue, 2016 ) to differ between colour-blind and non-colour-blind individuals. More specifically, colour-blind individuals preferred yellowish colours to a greater extent and bluish colours to a lesser extent than non-colour-blind individuals ( Álvaro et al, 2015 ).…”

Prevalence of refractive errors and color vision deficiency in a population of industry-workers in Abhar, Iran

“…CVD causes difficulties in some jobs such as driving, fashion designing, electronic engineering, military, and medicine and education. Some workers may have trouble reading charts and graphs, and lights [46,47] . While most color blind people have likely learned to adapt to their conditions.…”

“…Some workers may have trouble reading charts and graphs, and lights. [46,47] While most color blind people have likely learned to adapt to their conditions. For patients with difficulties at their jobs, some modalities might help to cope their difficulties and stress.…”

Colorimetry and Dichromatic Vision

“…Color preference in normal observers [34] has been explained considering object-color associations [35], emotional factors [36], and the responses in the chromatic opponent mechanisms [37]. For the last case, standard colorimetric measurements have been used to estimate the response magnitudes in the three retinal cones (L, M, and S) and the two opponent mechanisms (red-green, L-M, and yellow-blue, S-(L + M)).…”