Affective Impressions and Memorability of Color-Form Combinations

Abstract

In this study the authors investigate how various impressions affect the recognition of color-form pairs. They performed a preliminary study, a main study of impression rating using the semantic differential method, and a recognition experiment. On the basis of the preliminary study, the authors chose 14 appropriate pairs of adjectives and 48 color and form stimuli and used them for the main study. Factor analysis of the main study extracted three factors: Activity, Potency, and Evaluation. In the recognition test, the authors found that color-form pairs with congruent impressions in Activity or Potency were more easily recognized than pairs with incongruent impressions. In contrast, pairs with incongruent impressions in Evaluation were recognized more easily than congruent pairs. These results are discussed in relation to the assumed network representations of affective impressions that have different characteristics depending on the three factors.

Keywords:

• color and form
• impression
• recognition memory
• semantic differential method