The colour of nostalgia
The colour of nostalgia
Associations between colours and emotions have been evoked in many contexts, including literature, cinematography, and marketing. There is evidence that colours are associated with emotions such as happiness, sadness, and anger. It remains an open question whether those associations are based on cultural conventions or reflect a meaningful link between perceptual and emotional experiences. Nostalgia is an interesting test case for the emotional significance of colours, because this emotion is complex and bittersweet (simultaneously happy and sad). It also evokes memories of the past that may be the source of colour associations. We conducted two online surveys (N=191; N=489) with a different set of colour stimuli each (calibrated assuming sRGB). For each colour, participants indicated its association with nostalgia using a slider. They also rated how happy, sad, positive, and negative they felt about nostalgia, and entered three concepts they associated with nostalgia. Results from both stimulus sets indicate that slightly desaturated colours are most strongly associated with nostalgia. Participants associated nostalgia with specific concepts (childhood, photos, friends), but these concepts were uncorrelated with colour ratings. We also compared nostalgia-colour associations with colour preferences and colour-emotion associations from previous studies. We observed a negative relation between colour preferences and nostalgia-associations, due to greenish-brown colours being strongly associated with nostalgia, but least preferred (r[485]=-0.38, p=0.03). Colour preferences and associations between colour and happiness were also related to individual differences in colour-nostalgia associations: observers who rated nostalgia as more positive and happier associated nostalgia with colours that they preferred less (r[485]=-0.24, p<0.001) and rated as happier (r[485]=0.27, p<0.001). These results imply that colours express the affective valence of nostalgia. However, a comparison across the two surveys suggested that cultural differences and colour samples may be relevant. Research will need to address these issues before drawing definitive conclusions about the colour of nostalgia.
Witzel, Christoph
dfb994f1-7007-441a-9e1a-ddb167f44166
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
September 2021
Witzel, Christoph
dfb994f1-7007-441a-9e1a-ddb167f44166
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Witzel, Christoph, Wildschut, Tim and Sedikides, Constantine
(2021)
The colour of nostalgia.
Journal of Vision, 21 (9), [2714].
(doi:10.1167/jov.21.9.2714).
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Meeting abstract
Abstract
Associations between colours and emotions have been evoked in many contexts, including literature, cinematography, and marketing. There is evidence that colours are associated with emotions such as happiness, sadness, and anger. It remains an open question whether those associations are based on cultural conventions or reflect a meaningful link between perceptual and emotional experiences. Nostalgia is an interesting test case for the emotional significance of colours, because this emotion is complex and bittersweet (simultaneously happy and sad). It also evokes memories of the past that may be the source of colour associations. We conducted two online surveys (N=191; N=489) with a different set of colour stimuli each (calibrated assuming sRGB). For each colour, participants indicated its association with nostalgia using a slider. They also rated how happy, sad, positive, and negative they felt about nostalgia, and entered three concepts they associated with nostalgia. Results from both stimulus sets indicate that slightly desaturated colours are most strongly associated with nostalgia. Participants associated nostalgia with specific concepts (childhood, photos, friends), but these concepts were uncorrelated with colour ratings. We also compared nostalgia-colour associations with colour preferences and colour-emotion associations from previous studies. We observed a negative relation between colour preferences and nostalgia-associations, due to greenish-brown colours being strongly associated with nostalgia, but least preferred (r[485]=-0.38, p=0.03). Colour preferences and associations between colour and happiness were also related to individual differences in colour-nostalgia associations: observers who rated nostalgia as more positive and happier associated nostalgia with colours that they preferred less (r[485]=-0.24, p<0.001) and rated as happier (r[485]=0.27, p<0.001). These results imply that colours express the affective valence of nostalgia. However, a comparison across the two surveys suggested that cultural differences and colour samples may be relevant. Research will need to address these issues before drawing definitive conclusions about the colour of nostalgia.
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Published date: September 2021
Additional Information:
Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract
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Local EPrints ID: 480074
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/480074
ISSN: 1534-7362
PURE UUID: 9ab02fef-2ee7-4a42-85a2-eb0f17ad58e3
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Date deposited: 01 Aug 2023 16:42
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:53
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