The Exploration of Specific Associations from Words to Colours

Yun Chen, Jie Yang, Fan Zhang, Kaida Xiao, Stephen Westland

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This study mainly focused on exploring the associations between words and colours. Colour association expresses a specific relationship between colour and various concepts or objects. However, it is noticed that when colour association is discussed, it is often in one direction; from colours to concepts. In this study, it is posited that colour association is bidirectional, meaning that we can also start with a word or concept and answer the question which colour or colours are associated with it. A psychophysical experiment was carried out to collect specific colour associations from target words. In the results, the strong similarity of the associated colours for each word was presented, meaning that people selected similar colours for each word. The study also indicated that different word classes have different degrees of association with colours. This study elucidates strong associations from words to colours, an important contribution of this work is to emphasise the direction word->colour in terms of colour association.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Imaging Science and Technology
Volume67
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2023

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