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With some overlapping and contradicting results a number of studies have demonstrated that there is an interrelation between colors and emotions. Some studies conclude tliat colors and other aesthetic effects are strong emotion triggers inducing affective reaction when interacting with interfaces or webpages. Our study tests color-emotion mappings in interface environments within a modified framework of Ou et al. (2004a, b, c) applying a rating task in an in-group quasiexperimental setting for colors selected from a typical color scheme (MS Paint 7 Palette) used in digital environments. We have characterized and grouped the tested colors with respect to evaluation tendencies regarding emotion association pairs - polar adjectives used in the rating task. Correlations between colors that are evaluated similarly with respect to emotion association pairs as well as emotion association pairs evaluated similarly with respect to the tested colors have also been detected and discussed in the study. The study contributes to the interrelated areas of interface usability and design analysis, usability improvement, and interface color categorization. The results show that perception of color-emotion mappings is age and gender dependent.
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1 Laboratory for Perceptual and Cognitive Systems at the Faculty of Computing, University of atvia, Riga, Latvia
2 Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Optometry, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
3 Faculty of Business, Management and Economics, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia