Thered stimulates and awakens passion in the west, in addition to warning of danger from traffic signs. However,in China it is the symbol of good luck, the color of the ancient emperors’ costumes, and the people of that country are happy when they receive a red envelope on Chinese New Year. Still, a Spaniard and a Chinese will probably agree that thered is a warm color. This is what the tests that researcher Li-Chen Ou of the National University of Science and Technology of Taiwan has carried out for years and which the SINC agency echoes.
A team of researchers coordinated by Ou has come together to learn about the emotions people feel about colors. Part of the results of the experiment, which has been carried out in Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Iran, Taiwan and Argentina, are published in the latest issue of the magazineColor Research and Application. The tests consisted of posing before a monitor, particularly calibrated and under the same conditions in all countries, three different exercises to groups of observers of different age, sex and occupation. In the first session about 70 individual colors were presented, in the second 190 combinations of two colors -both on a gray background-, and in the third two-color collections arranged in a woman’s clothing by means of photos with spring and summer clothes, autumn and winter. Below each combination was a numerical scale for observers to rate their sensations using opposite adjectives, such as cold-warm, modern-old-fashioned, harmonious-dissonant, or like-dislike.
So far the results show thatwomen prefer light colorsand with less saturation, more pure. And that as we get older we tend to prefer the combination of light but more intense colors. As for the observerswith design experience, the study reveals thatthey opt for pastel tones, as well as pairs with a similar tone, and the most harmonious combinations. Another curious detail is thatthe Argentines involved in the study preferred passive colors, that is, close to gray, especially cold colors, bluish or bluish-green. Participants from the other countries chose warmer colors.
This type of study has direct application in commercial marketing, since knowing what color combinations a type of customer prefers or not can help to better sell the product to them.
In addition, the research raises anew theory on the emotion of colors. Taking into account that the response to the variables warm-cold, heavy-light and active-passive was similar in all groups, the study develops a model in which these three pairs of sensations are classified within a level called “reactive” , that is, emotions for which everyone feels the same, such as cold and heat. On the contrary, the I like-dislike pair would be part of a “reflective” level, typical of each observer, such as feeling pain or joy at the same event. This type of emotion is the one that is more related to culture, such as the different interpretation of the color red.
