Texture affects color emotion

Several studies have recorded color emotions in
subjects viewing uniform color (UC) samples. We conduct
an experiment to measure and model how these color
emotions change when texture is added to the color samples.
Using a computer monitor, our subjects arrange
samples along four scales: warm-cool, masculine-feminine,
hard-soft, and heavy-light. Three sample types of
increasing visual complexity are used: UC, grayscale textures,
and color textures (CTs). To assess the intraobserver
variability, the experiment is repeated after 1 week.
Our results show that texture fully determines the
responses on the Hard-Soft scale, and plays a role of
decreasing weight for the masculine-feminine, heavy-
light, and warm-cool scales. Using some 25,000 observer
responses, we derive color emotion functions that predict
the group-averaged scale responses from the samples’
color and texture parameters. For UC samples, the accuracy
of our functions is significantly higher (average R2
¼ 0.88) than that of previously reported functions applied
to our data. The functions derived for CT samples have
an accuracy of R2 ¼ 0.80. We conclude that when textured
samples are used in color emotion studies, the
psychological responses may be strongly affected by
texture.