Augmented Happiness: Simple Color Changes Influence Users’ Conceptual Choices

Color is a powerful visual property and is used to make interferences about the world. However, no theoretical framework is available that explains precisely where color associations come from and how they affect psychological functioning, making it difficult to predict how color affects human-computer interaction. This paper aims at closing this gap by suggesting an Embodied Cognition view on color, which assumes that the aggregate of our perceptual color experiences is part of the mental representation of tactile object attributes and thus systematically influences our abstract thinking via the process of metaphorical mapping. An empirical study is presented in which hues and saturation of objects were manipulated via Augmented Reality. Participants matched objects to abstract concepts, e.g., happiness. 83 % of the participants’ choices were correctly predicted, suggesting that color information is considered during the processing of abstract information. Eight color-to-abstract-concept mappings are recommended and possible areas of application are discussed.