A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear

Transcription

1 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear Ching-Chien Liang, Kuohsiang Chen 1 and Chun-Heng Ho Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University (Tainan), TAIWAN. Abstract. This study explored consumers Kansei evaluation of the color of plastic eyewear. The procedure included: (1) collecting over 400 plastic eyewear samples on Taiwan's market; (2) collecting emotional adjectives for describing the color of eyewear frames, (3) selecting one representative eyewear frame and 10 variation colors by four design experts, (4) selecting 8 representative emotional adjectives with Kawakita Jiro method, (5) conducting experiment with Semantic Differential method to record the subjective evaluation of the eyewear samples, (6) analyzing data collected with multi-variable analysis and principal component analysis. The results indicated that: the Red frame had the highest scores on "avant-garde", "strong" as well as "unique"; the Pink frame exhibited "soft" feel; the Yellow frame showed "young" most; the Green frame demonstrated "vulgar" impression; the Indigo frame displayed the most "popular" and "rational"; the Black frame presented "traditional", "stable", "noble" and "formal"; while the Purple frame represented the most "sensational". On the whole, the color of plastic eyewear had significant emotional appeal for peoples. Different color collocation of eyewear will change the overall emotional reflection. The results of the study may serve as a reference of color plan for eyewear designer as well as end users. Keywords. Kansei Engineering, Kawakita Jiro Method, Color Emotion, Cognitive Psychology, Plastic Eyewear 1 Introduction 1.1 General Background Psychologists noted the meanings of color conveyed to people may vary, e.g. red can be a symbol of passion, but also signifying danger. Which lead to the psychological theory of color [2]. Kobayashi (1986) mentioned in his book that color and shape are two sides of a form. However, many studies have shown that humans visual perception of color are more sensitive than that of shape. Therefore, colors, in the normal state, have stronger emotional impact on people than shapes, because colors act not only on one's psychology, but also on his/her health 1 Professor (Department of Industrial Design), National Cheng Kung University (Tainan), TAIWAN. 1 University Road, Tainan, Taiwan kchen@mail.ncku.edu.tw

2 2 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho management. Color and shape are two important visual elements in design. A good design not only must function well, but also should appeal to the users. To achieve these objectives, the color element cannot be overlooked [5]. Professional designers usually equip with acute sense of color about their designs. But many studies proved that color preference is rather a subjective feeling. Therefore, we cannot make sure that the emotion users reflected from an object is the same as that of designers. Hence, it became a research issue to be explored in depth. The composition of a pair of eyewear is also consisted of two basic elements, shape and color. Shi (1995) employed the theory of artificial neural net to explore the relationship between the shape of eyewear and the Kansei images to provide a reference for the eyewear designers [10]. In this study, the relationship between the color of eyewear design and users emotional reaction was explored via Kansei Engineering approach to guarantee more appropriate eyewear color design for targeted users. As users emotional feelings about any object are so subjective, there is no single standard to judge the appropriateness of any design. To assure product competitiveness, one must faithfully reflect and satisfy marcket demands. In other words, one has to meet the emotional needs of the target consumers. Humans perceive external information stimulated by the product form with sensory organs, and generate activities of cognitive evaluation of thoughts and emotion internally. Which means consumers come into contact with product via its external image, such as shape, size, color etc., and then, result in a comprehensive feel [1]. 1.2 Purpose of the Research The aim of this study was to explore users emotional reaction about the color of plastic eyewear. It was hoped to come up some applicable rules for eyewear designers in the end. The objectives can be summarized as follows: (1) Exploring commonly used colors for plastic-framed eyewear and the situation of usage. (2) Understanding the adjectives used in describing color image by current Taiwanese eyewear consumer groups. (3) Investigating users color cognition of the plastic eyewear. (4) Analyzing the relationship between the color of plastic eyewear and users psychological cognitive factors. (6) Summarizing the results to provide as reference for future research and design purposes. 2 Theoretical Background 2.1 Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology can be defined as a scientific analysis of humans mental processes and structure for understanding humans behavior [6]. In this definition,

3 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear 3 there are three key components: scientific analysis, mental process and structure and understanding humans behavior. Scientific Analysis - cognitive psychology must use scientific method. The objective, validated methods can be repeated to guarantee the same procedure can reach the same results. Therefore, cognitive psychologists have to invent appropriate tools for observing and analyzing humans mental activities. Mental Processes and Structure - mental processes and structure are the two major studied areas of the cognitive psychology. Mental processes focusses on exploring how we use or handle information or knowledge while engaging in some work, while mental structure on exploring how we store information and knowledge and what information or knowledge we store in the memory. Understanding Humans Behavior - the ultimate aim of any psychological science is to understand humans behavior. The aim of cognitive psychology is to better understand and predict humans behavior through precise analysis of mental processes and structure [11]. For example, analysis of the mental processes in answering to a math problem can understand why and predict who are able to answer while others not [9]. 2.2 Color Perception In the late nineteenth century, color perception and color aesthetics have begun to be taken seriously. French scholar Chevreul ( ) first proposed the concepts of hue harmony, similar harmony and contrast harmony. Almost at the same time, the oppinion about the classification for hue, brightness and saturation of color was also raised. Bullough ( ) argued that it could be divided into the following four groups based on people s reaction to colors [13]: (1) Objective Type: attribute based evaluation of color. Rational and critical attitude, not emotional one was adopted toward color perception. Analyzing color with an attempt to find traces of other colors and to determine either pure or impure for a color. It gives experimenters the impression that this type of people does not seem to have close relations with color. They rarely reveal any visible or sustained preferences on any certain color. But they often hold certain criteria for judging the characteristics of color. This type of people tends to hate certain colors more often than other types of people. (2) Associative Type: associating objects to colors before the evaluation of color. This type of people is particularly sensitive to irritating or soothing, warm or cold colors. They have stable preference for red color. Some subjects are even trembling when they view certain cold blue. Overall, this type of people can better appreciate color than others, but seldom enjoy the aesthetics of color due to the shift of attention away from color itself to the associative effect the color generated. (3) Physiological Type: feelings generated affected by color. This type has smaller population realtively. Most of the subjects made judgments either objectively or physiologically. They have different preference over colors because each has different associations to specific taste. For example, for those who often think of the nature like green most. For those who often think of clothing like the colors of their favorate clothings.

4 4 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho (4) Character Type: emotional reaction toward colors. This type of people tends to enjoy color more than the Objective Type. During the experiment, a few subjects can be found as transitional type between the Physiological Type and the Character Type. 2.3 Color Image Color image is a comprehensive psychological quality of color characteristics based on color attributes. There are three major dimensions in measuring color images: evaluation, potency, and activity [7]. For example, Beauty-Ugly, Elegance-Vulgar, etc. are evaluative, Strong-Weak, Light-Heavy, Masculine-Female, etc. are potent while Dynamic-Static, Bright- Dark, Compelling-Tedious, etc. are activated values of color images. In short, color can triger people s psychological feeling and emotional reaction [12]. In daily life, we often use various adjectives to represent images of objects. These adjectives can usually convey the inherent qualities of objects or reflect viewers psychological feelings correctly, such as: Fashionable clothes, Elegant restaurant, Romantic candlelight dinners. Color believed to have stronger power than form in effectively conveying the images of objects [4]. 2.4 The Structure of Eyewear Eyewear is defined in Encyclopedia Britannica as: lenses set in frames for wearing in front of the eyes to aid vision or to correct such defects of vision as myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. [3]. The differences of the basic structure among various eyewears are not large. The structure is broadly divided into: A-main body, B-rim, C-bridge, D-nose pad, E-flange, F-joint, G-arm, H-feet, I-rim eyebrow, J-shield button, K-temple and L-lens. (Figure 1.) Figure 1. The structure of eyewear

5 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear 5 3 Method 3.1 Sample Collecting and Screening First, the plastic eyewears available on the market were extensively collected from both websites and catalogs. A total of 400 original images from different brands displayed in the same direction were collected. Followed by a screening process by experts to select the representative ones. Figures 2 and 3 show a portion of the 400 samples and the representative frame respectively. Figure 2. A portion of 400 samples Figure 3. Representative frame selected by experts

6 6 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho 3.2 Emotional Vocabulary Collecting and Selecting A group of four design experts was invited to generate emotional vocabularies suitable for describing eyewears via brainstorming sessions. After the brainstorming sessions, duplicates or similar ones were deleted. Finally the most representative ones were selected based on majority counts from the four experts to pair up opposite adjectives. The final 8 adjective pairs are: Avant-garde - Traditional, Soft - Strong, Rational - Emotional, Common - Unique, Poise - Lively, Young - Old, Elegant - Vulgar, Casual - Formal. 3.3 Color Samples Selecting According to the most popular colors used for current eyewear frames and the hues people can easily tell, 10 representative colors based on Munsell Renotation System were chosen for experiment. Figure 4 shows the ten colors: 1-R (red), 2-PK (pink), 3-Y (yellow), 4-O (orange), 5-G (green), 6-W (white), 7-B (blue), 8-I (indigo), 9-K (black) and 10-P (purple). No.1 / Red No.2 / Pink No.3 / Yellow No.4 / Orange No.5 / Green No.6 / White No.7 / Blue No.8 / Indigo No.9 / Black No.10 / Purple Figure 4. The 10 representative colors of plastic eyewear 3.4 Conducting Experiments A questionnaire with 7-level Lickert scale was designed to record subjects emotional reaction toward the ten samples against the 8 Kansei adjectives. 4 Results and Analysis 4.1 Descriptive Statistics Total of 30 subjects tested, ages from 18 to 35 years old (inclusive), with experience of wearing plastic eyewear and normal color vision ability. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the 10 samples against the 8 adjective pairs.

7 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear 7 Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the 10 eyewear samples against the 8 adjective pairs Sample Avant-garde - Traditional Soft - Strong Rational - Emotional Common - Unique Poise - Lively Young - Old Elegant - Vulgar Casual - Formal R Mean P K SD Mean SD Y Mean SD O Mean SD G Mean SD W Mean SD B Mean SD I Mean SD K Mean SD P Mean SD The extreme values for left adjectives are shown in Red, and right in Blue.

8 8 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho 4.2 Principal Component Analysis Principal Components Analysis was conducted to extract major factors in describing color emotion for plastic eyewears. The Correlation Matrix was employed to extract Eigenvalues that greater than one, and then using Varimax of orthogonal axis to minimize the number of variables for each factor that has high loading of variations and to simplify factors to get the best interpretation. Three factors were extracted to explain variations with total volume of percent. Table 2 shows the results of Principal Component Analysis. Table 2. Principal component analysis Component Eigenvalue Squares sum loading Sum Variance % Cumulative % Sum Variance % Cumulative % Recently, many scholars have actively studied the emotion of colors. Japanese scholar, Professor Oyama argued that there are three basic elements in analyzing the psychological factors for color perception: evaluation, potency, and activity [8]. The analysis of the factor loading values in Table 2 revealed that the three components are in line with the findings of Professor Oyama: evaluation, activity and potency. The purpose at this stage is to categorize emotional adjectives with factor analysis, so the factor loading values are used for determining which factor dimension it belongs to but not for filtering factors. Table 3 shows the loading values for each adjective pairs while Table 4 depicting that Rational-Emotional, Elegant-Vulgar and Common-Unique are Evaluative, Young-Old, Casual-Formal and Soft-Strong, are while Avant-garde-Traditional and Poise-Lively being. 4.3 Emotional Factor Analysis for Color Plastic Eyewears Table 5 shows the summary of the emotional factor analysis for the 10 color plastic eyewear samples.

9 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear 9 Table 3. Loading values of the cognition factors for colors Emotional Adjectives Factors 1 () 2 () 3 () Avant-garde - Traditional Soft - Strong Rational - Emotional, Common - Unique Poise - Lively Young - Old Elegant - Vulgar Casual - Formal *Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Table 4. Naming of the components and the composition factors Mental Cognitive Dimensions Named Component Dimensions Composition Factors Component 1 Rational / Emotional, Elegant / Vulgar, Common / Unique, Component 2 Young / Old, Casual / Formal, Soft / Strong, Avant-garde / Traditional, Component 3 Poise / Lively Table 5. The summary of the emotional factor analysis for the 10 samples Sample 1 ( Red ) Sample 2 ( Pink ) Rational - Emotional (mean=5.0667) Common - Unique (mean=5.8667) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=4.7333) Soft - Strong (mean=5.5333) Young - Old (mean=3.7667) Casual - Formal (mean=2.1) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=1.6667) Poise - Lively (mean=6.1667) Rational - Emotional (mean=5.3333) Common - Unique (mean=5.7333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=3.9667) Soft - Strong (mean=3.2) Young - Old (mean=3.3) Casual - Formal (mean=2.3667) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=1.8667) Poise - Lively (mean=6.1) Red frame feels emotional, representative of unique, but slightly vulgar sense Feels a little strong, casual look and most young sense Full of lively and avant-garde sense Pink frame sensibility, very unique, nonvulgar sense Impression of soft, casual and look young Full of lively and avant-garde sense

10 10 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho Sample 3 (Yellow ) Sample 4 ( Orange ) Sample 5 ( Green ) Sample 6 ( White ) Rational - Emotional (mean=4.9333) Common - Unique (mean=4.6333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=4.6333) Soft - Strong (mean=3.4667) Young - Old (mean=2.3333) Casual - Formal (mean=2.3) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=3.1) Poise - Lively (mean=5.1) Rational - Emotional (mean=4.4) Common -Unique (mean=5.5667) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=4.7) Soft - Strong (mean=3.5) Young - Old (mean=3.6) Casual - Formal (mean=3.5) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=2.9333) Poise - Lively (mean=4.6) Rational - Emotional (mean=3.9333) Common - Unique (mean=5.4333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=5.5667) Soft - Strong (mean=5.3333) Young - Old (mean=3.0333) Casual - Formal (mean=2.1667) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=2.4) Poise - Lively (mean=5.2333) Rational - Emotional (mean=3.8667) Common - Unique (mean=3.7333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=2.6333) Soft - Strong (mean=3.5333) Young - Old (mean=2.5333) Casual - Formal (mean=3.2667) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=1.7333) Poise - Lively (mean=4.3333) Yellow frame sensibility, some unique, but slightly vulgar sense Feels a little soft, full casual look and most young sense Slightly avant-garde and the lively Orange frame sensibility, very personalized, but slightly vulgar sense Feels a little soft, casual look and most young sense A little avant-garde with lively sense Green frame is very personalized, but it appears to the most vulgar sense Feel strong, look young and full of a sense of leisure Full avant-garde with lively sense White frame feels a little rational, a little unique, and looks noble Feels a little soft, casual look and most young sense Full of lively and avant-garde sense

11 A Study on Color Emotion for Plastic Eyewear 11 Sample 7 ( Blue ) Sample 8 (Indigo ) Sample 9 ( Black ) Sample 10 ( Purple ) Rational - Emotional (mean=4.1) Common - Unique (mean=4.1667) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=4.9667) Soft - Strong (mean=3.5333) Young - Old (mean=2.7333) Casual - Formal (mean=2.7333) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=2.2667) Poise - Lively (mean=5.5333) Rational - Emotional (mean=2.7667) Common - Unique (mean=3.3333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=5.0667) Soft - Strong (mean=4.4667) Young - Old (mean=3.4667) Casual - Formal (mean=2.1) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=2.3) Poise - Lively (mean=4.2667) Rational - Emotional (mean=3.1333) Common - Unique (mean=3.8667) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=2.5333) Soft - Strong (mean=5.5) Young - Old (mean=3.3) Casual - Formal (mean=4.9) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=4.3667) Poise - Lively (mean=1.4333) Rational - Emotional (mean=5.5) Common - Unique (mean=4.7333) Elegant - Vulgar (mean=4.2333) Soft - Strong (mean=3.3667) Young - Old (mean=3.5333) Casual - Formal (mean=2.9333) Avant-garde - Traditional (mean=2.1333) Poise - Lively (mean=4.3667) Blue frame slightly vulgar sense and somewhat unique Feels a little soft, casual look and most young sense Full of lively and avant-garde sense Indigo frame the most rational and popular, but slightly vulgar sense Feels a little strong, casual look and most young sense Full of lively and avant-garde sense Black frame feels rational, common, and noble Feels strong, looks a little young and formal Feels traditional and very stable Purple frame feels very emotional, somewhat vulgar sense and unique Feels soft, looks somewhat young and casual Full of avant-garde and lively sense

12 12 C. Liang, K. Chen and C. Ho 5 Conclusions and Suggestions This study investigated 10 color eyewear samples with eight adjective pairs of Kansei image, and found that there were significant differences among them. Which indicated that plastic eyewear with different frame and temple color will affect users psychological awareness of the products. The results show that the red frame has the most avant-garde sense, the most strong as well as unique oriented; pink frame is soft ; yellow frame feels most young ; green frame is vulgar ; indigo frame showes the most popular and rational ; black frame has traditional feel, and the most stable, noble and formal at the same time; while purple frame represents the most sensational". On the whole, the plastic eyewear gives the avant-garde feel, looks young and casual. The results can serve as a reference to Taiwan s manufacturers for producing the right colors to fit user s individual needs. 6 References [1] Chen K. Style recognition and description. Journal of Design. 1997; 2(2): [2] Elliot AJ, Maier MA. Color and psychological functioning. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2007; 16(5): [3] Eyeglasses, In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Available at: < Accessed on: Dec. 15 th [4] Kao SL. A study of the effect of changing size and shape of colored area on cognition in color combination. National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 2003; [5] Kobayashi S. Color marketing strategy. Future Career Management Consultants Inc., Taipei: 1986: [6] Neisser U. Cognitive psychology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967: 3-5. [7] Osgood CE. Semantic differential technique in the comparative study of cultures. American Anthropologist, 1964; 66(3), Part 2: [8] Oyama T. Color psychology. Taipei: Muchun Press, [9] Schunk DH, Hanson AR. Peer models: influence on children's self-efficacy and achievement behavior. Journal of Educational Psychology. 1985; 77: [10] Shih WM. The study of the corresponding relationship between forms and images of eye-glasses. National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan: [11] Tweney RD. A framework for the cognitive psychology of science. Psychology of science: Contributions to metascience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989: [12] Valdez P, Mehrabian A. Effects of color on emotions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, General. 1994; 123(4): [13] Valentine CW. An introduction to experimental psychology of beauty. London and Edinburgh :T. C. & E. C. Jack, ltd. London, 1919: