The Relationship between Colour Priming and the Attractiveness of Others Appearance - Research Paper Example

Abstract The experiment was designed to find whether the attraction and attitude to a particular target can be under the influence of colour that is shown to the study subject prior to visual observation of the target. The study was conducted in undergraduate students in the Canterbury Christchurch University and it was confirmed that the subjects enrolled did not have any disorders related to colour vision. The study used three photos with the same picture of roses in different colour like blue, yellow and red. After observation a questionnaire was provided which has three main components namely, feeling thermometer, general attitude and an attractiveness scale. An appropriate scaling was given to each component. Then another photo provided in the study was of the same women in a jumper of two different colour red and blue. Pre-tests were also conducted to rule out the difference between the photos other than the colour. In relation to attractiveness results revealed a correlation between the colour observed by the participant before viewing the target object. While considering warmness there was correlation between the colours of the roses observed by the participant before viewing the coloured jumpers. In general attitude it was observed that all the three colours had a significant effect on the attitude level of the participant towards seeing the women in the jumper. Pair wise comparison studies were also conducted in relation to warmness and general attitude. Introduction/Review of Literature:- Vision is a complex work done by the eyes and brain. The visual system with the help of the brain constructs a three dimensional picture of what the eyes observes in the outside world. The two together produces an archetype of the original thing which forms a perceptual base to physical and mental reactions of the human body. The evolution of human brain has lead to an intricate network of visual regions that reside on almost half the cerebral cortex. The retina is considered a part of brain present in the eyes and so it can be concluded that brain receives the first stimulus of light in the retina. The retina with the help of neurons carries the stimulus to specific part of the brain for recognition of the stimuli based on colour, size and depth. .The brain is anatomically separated into two hemispheres in humans and both the hemispheres have an important role in processing the vision. The visual stimulus received is the left eye is carried to the right hemisphere and it is processed there and vice-versa Louis verrey in his study in 1888 came out with his idea of the epitome of chromatic sense in the body, but during his time many opposed to his theories and said that its is based on false observation and research and so the work of Louis was totally neglected for along time. “The discovery of Louis that the colour centre lies in the lingual and fusiform gyri, and hence outside the calcarine cortex, led him to suppose that the primary visual receptive centre ( the cortical retina of Henschen, which we call VI) extended beyond the striate cortex in the calcarine sulcus; the primary visual receptive centre was, therefore , not only much more extensive than supposed by henschen, Flechsig (1901) and others, but it was also regionally specialized” (Bartels & Zeki 2000, pp. 172-193). “The primate retina contains three classes of cones, the L, M and S cones, which respond preferentially to long-, middle- and short wavelength visible light, respectively and colour appearance results from neural processing of these cone signals within the retina and the brain. Perceptual experiments have identified three types of neural pathways that represent colour: a red–green pathway that signals differences between L- and M-cone responses; a blue– yellow pathway that signals differences between S-cone responses and a sum of L- and M-cone responses; and a luminance pathway that signals a sum of L- and M-cone responses (Engel et al 1997, pp. 68-71). In cerebral cortex the visual cortex areas named V1 and V2 has an important role to play in response to perception of red and green colours. The red or green stimuli are received by the L and M cones in the eyes which are later transmitted via neurons to the specific cortical areas. Similar kind of response is also associated to stimuli caused by blue and yellow colours and in this case the strength of stimuli depends on the variation of temporal frequency. The response of brain to these colours can be regarded as psychophysical measurements, revealing that process of perception of colours are carried out by the large network of neurons in the region V1 and V2. “A growing body of scientific work suggest that the wavelengths around 450nm, 540nm and 605 nm, the so called prime-colour wavelength , are fundamental to colour vision. Monitors that can display a large gamut of colours and are visually efficient have phosphor-primary peaks at the prime-colour wavelength and at the same time colour cameras with peak sensitivities at the prime-colour wavelength have favourable colour-balancing properties” (Grill et al n.d. pp. 33-42). While considering optimal processing in regard to photos and pictures on paper prime colour wavelengths have an important role to play. Optimum processing here is always correlated to gamut size and other factors. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) has developed the ‘CIE 1931 XYZ colour space’ which gives a logical and numerical model to understanding of perception of colour. The so called tristimulus values X,Y and Z as mentioned by ‘CIE 1931 XYZ colour space’ correlates to the red , blue and green colour respectively in other words these can be said to be logical parameters based on the three colours. The tristimulus value should differ for each component X,Y,Z in a human eye to differentiate between colours. The degree of visual concentration by a person has vital role on the working of cortical stimulus. “Studies suggest that visual attention amplifies the earliest waves of visumotor feed forward information, elicited in turn by primes and by targets and so priming effects were strongly amplified when the relevant prime locations were visually attended at optimal cue-prime Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), with attention modulating the entire time course of the primed pointing movements. Pointing trajectories revealed large priming effects in which pointing responses were first controlled by prime signals and then captured in mid-flight by target signals”( Schmidt & Seydell 2008, pp. 443-455). “Studies with neurological patients have shown that a number of stimulus attributes, such as shape, colour and motion can be discriminated without the patients’ explicit awareness of these attributes as indicated by their verbal reports. Related priming was reported when colour was used as the relevant stimulus attribute; for example, positive response priming was observed when a green target disk was followed by a green annular mask, and negative priming was observed when the same target was followed by a red mask” (Brietmeyer et al 2004, pp. 192-202). Research has put forward that white prime when obstructed from the visual observation of study patients a percept dependent working will take place. This is a an example that stands for the theory of unconscious colour priming. The work on white prime as mentioned above was also correlated to blue and green based on research in various study subjects. Cortical activity parameters were also researched on to analyze the cortical characteristics in presence of stimulus and percept –dependent priming of colours. According to research reports white colour does not function as a neutral prime. “Glaser and Glaser (1989) assume that the processing of colours and pictures is highly similar in that, compared to words, both kinds of stimulus have privileged access to semantic information. A experiment done in 1993 gives an adapted version of the Glaser and Glaser model is proposed: colours are assumed to have privileged access to a separate colour processing system and the pattern of interference depends upon the relative activation strength of the response alternatives activated by the target and the distractor.” (Houvwer et al 1994, pp. 293-300). Subliminal perception can be described as when the messages in a target is not extracted by the conscious mind but at the same time the target that was observed has an effect on the subconscious mind or inner mind. “Choice reaction times to visual stimuli (targets) may be influenced by preceding subliminal stimuli(primes).Certain research works reported straight priming effect in which responses were faster when primes and targets called for the same response than when they called for different responses” (Jaskowski 2008, pp.72-83). In relation to straight priming certain research work put forwards that this kind of priming occurs when the masking of prime is not proper and so the consciousness self become aware of the prime which cause an effect on the target. Differentiating between colours and identifying a particular colour is the main component of human vision. According to many studies it is concluded that perception of colour will help the brain to differentiate between objects and to construct a visual memory based on colour difference and also gives a relaxing experience to visual experiences. “When we gaze upon a scene, our brains combine many types of locally ambiguous visual information to rapidly generate a globally unambiguous representation of form and colour-in-depth” (Grossberg 1987, pp. 87-116). “There is ample evidence that an independent processing stream exists that sub serves the perception and appreciation of colour. Neurophysiologic research has identified separate brain mechanism for the processing of wavelength and colour, and neurophysiological studies have revealed that selective colour disorders, such as achromatopsia, colour agnosia and colour anomia” (Nijboer & van Zandvoort n.d. pp. 7269-274).“The role of automatic and conscious mechanisms was investigated in experiments by manipulating the predictive validity of the prime stimuli (80%, 50%, 20%), keeping constant the value of stimulus-onset asynchrony (350 msec.) and the prime stimulus used were red green or black circular dot followed by a red or green annular ring (target).Analysis showed priming effects even in the low predictive condition, where no conscious expectations could be activated” (Paola et al 1993, pp. 259-69). Congruent effect and in congruent effect is another fully researched aspect in colour priming in relation to human perception of colours. “Studies suggest that congruence effect has a significant role for both colour priming and word priming. Results from research suggested that congruence effect: (1) required processing the prime beyond the level of stimulus detection; (2) did not require a prime/target identity match; and (3) involved the stimulus encoding stage rather than the response selection stage” (Simon 1998, pp. 45-60). The hypothesis of this experiment is: (1) The colour shown on the landscape picture will effect and correspond with participant’s response to the attractiveness and general attitude and feeling towards the target. Method Participants: Data was collected from 88 participants all of whom were undergraduate students (40 males, 48 females). The majority of participants (66 Participants) were students studying for a degree in psychology while the other 22 participants were early childhood studies or sociology students. Participants were selected by means of an optimistic sample. All participants were between 19-27 years old (the average age of subjects was 20.9). Participants received no payment for their participation and participated voluntarily in this research study. All the data supplied by the participants was valid and complete so no individual sets of data needed to be withdrawn from the study. Participants were allocated to one of eight conditions randomly. Materials: Three photos displaying a collection of roses were used in this experiment, each of the three photos displayed the same collection of roses however each of the three photos displayed the collection of roses in different colours. The photos either showed the collection of roses as blue, red or yellow. The colours of the roses were originally blue and were changed to yellow and red using Adobe Photoshop CS4. The original photo was a copyright – free image obtained of www.picfindr.com. One of the three photos showed the roses in blue, while another photo showed the roses in yellow and the third photo showed the roses in red. A questionnaire was also used in this experiment. The questionnaire consisted of three questions. The first question on the questionnaire consisted of a feeling thermometer (1 feeling really cold, 10 feeling really hot), the second question consisted of a general attitude 10 point scale (1 being a very negative attitude, 10 being a very positive attitude). The third question consisted of an attractiveness scale 10 point scale (1 being very unattractive and 10 being very attractive). The questionnaire used in this experiment is described in more detail in the procedure section and is shown in the appendix. The experiment also used two photos of a woman. One photo showed the woman wearing a blue jumper while the other photo shown the woman wearing a red jumper, the photographs were identical to each other except the colour of the jumper. The colour of the jumper which was red was changed to blue for the second photo using Adobe Photoshop CS4. Adobe Photoshop was used to change the colour of the jumpers rather than taking two separate photos of the woman wearing different colour jumpers. This was to ensure that apart from the colour of the jumper the photos were entirely identical this was so that the colour of the jumper was the only variable as subtle changes could happen if a separate picture was taken. Design: The experiment had a 4 x 2 between subjects design. The independent variables in this experiment were the priming picture which had four levels (subjects either presented with the picture in blue, red, yellow or were presented with no picture). The second independent variable was the colour of the woman’s jumper the subjects saw which had two levels (Woman was either wearing a red or a blue jumper). The dependent variable in the experiment was the overall ratings subjects gave to the picture of the woman. Procedure: Before this actual experiment was carried out a pre-test was conducted. A pre – test was conducted to establish whether subjects found the three photos of the roses equally attractive, this was to make sure that the colour of the roses was the only variable. The pre –test was involved 21 subjects. Participants were placed in one of three conditions (each condition contained a total of 7 subjects). Participants completed this pre-test individually in a quiet room with no distractions. The first condition involved the original photo of the roses in blue, the second condition involved the photo of the roses in red, and the third condition involved the photo of the roses in yellow. In the pre-test subjects were asked to look at the photo and then to rate using a scale of 1-5 how pleasant, how nice, and how desirable they found the photo. There was no time limit for how long participants had to look at the photo. The results of the pre- test showed that there was no significant difference between the three photos which meant that the experiment could be conducted. No participants who were involved in the pre-test took part in the actual experiment. The results from the pre – test are shown in the appendix. As in the pre –test, participants carried out this experiment individually. The actual experiment was conducted in a room known as the ‘quiet lounge’ above the student union at Canterbury Christchurch University. This room was chosen as it was free from distractions and had a peaceful atmosphere, so that participants could focus clearly. All participants were tested by the same researcher. First participants were randomly allocated to one of four conditions each containing 22 participants. The four conditions involved either the participant being presented with the blue, red or yellow priming picture of the roses or not being presented with a priming picture at all. In the conditions involving the priming picture participants were asked if they would object to looking at the picture of roses and give a rating out of 10 on how pleasant they thought the photo was (1 being not at all pleasant, 10 being extremely pleasant). Participants in the priming condition were told that this was an experiment of a friend of the researchers and was nothing to do with the experiment they were about to be involved in. Participants were mildly deceived so they did not guess the nature of the experiment, all participants involved in the priming condition agreed to take to part. In the next and final part of the experiment participants were then allocation to one of two conditions which was either the photo of the woman wearing the red jumper or the photo of the same woman wearing a blue jumper. Half of the participants (11 participants) from each condition were randomly allocated to the condition of the woman with the red jumper while the other half of the participants from that condition were allocated to the condition of the woman with the blue jumper. This meant that each of the two conditions had a total of 44 participants. All participants in both conditions were given the same questionnaire (a copy of the questionnaire is shown in the appendix) and the same instructions. Participants were presented with the photo and the questionnaire at the same time and were told there was no time limited for completing the questionnaire. Participants were first asked using a 1-10 point scale how warm they felt towards the picture (1 being very cold, 10 being very warm). The second question participants were asked by means of general attitude 10 point scale (1 being a very negative attitude, 10 being a very positive attitude) what their general attitude towards the picture was. The third question participants were asked was how attractive did they consider the photo of the woman this was measure by the means of an attractiveness scale 10 point scale (1 being very unattractive and 10 being very attractive). After completing the study all participants were fully debriefed and thanked for their participants in the study. Participants were also told that if they wished to received details on the final results of the experiment they would be able to if they provided the researcher with their email address, however no participant did wish to receive these details. Results Attractiveness results Table 1 : Test of Between-Subjects Effects for attractiveness. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable:How attractive Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected Model 27.273a 7 3.896 1.573 .156 Intercept 2404.545 1 2404.545 970.642 .000 Roses colour 3.909 3 1.303 .526 .666 Jumper 2.909 1 2.909 1.174 .282 Roses colour * Jumper 20.455 3 6.818 2.752 .048 Error 198.182 80 2.477 Total 2630.000 88 Corrected Total 225.455 87 The above table 1 shows there was a significant interaction effect of colour red roses and the jumper to each other as p-value is equal to 048 which is less than the critical value. However the computed F-test statistic proves that there is no significant effect of the colour of jumper on the participants who rated her for attractiveness. This is evident when at level of significance 95% and degrees of freedom, v1 = 7 and v2 = 80, the calculated p-value is equal to .282, a magnitude far greater than the critical value = 0.05or 5%. The table also shows that the rose colour was also not significant at 0.666. The attractiveness of the woman when wearing the red jumper was significantly lower if participants were primed with blue roses. Results for how warm participants found the photos. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable:How warm Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected Model 42.545a 7 6.078 2.535 .021 Intercept 2321.636 1 2321.636 968.265 .000 Roses_colour 28.636 3 9.545 3.981 .011 Jumper .727 1 .727 .303 .583 Roses_colour * Jumper 13.182 3 4.394 1.833 .148 Error 191.818 80 2.398 Total 2556.000 88 Corrected Total 234.364 87 a. R Squared = .182 (Adjusted R Squared = .110) The test conducted on determining the direct relationship between coloured jumpers and coloured roses show that indeed there is significant effect of the colour of the roses. The level of significance chosen is 5% and result indicates that computed p-value from such test is 0.011 which is less than the critical value (0.05) so therefore the colour of the roses were significant. However the colour of the jumper was not significant and the colour of the roses and jumper combined was also not significant as they exceeded the critical value. Pairwise Comparisons Dependent Variable:How warm (I) Roses_colour (J) Roses_colour Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.a 95% Confidence Interval for Difference Lower Bound Upper Bound Blu Red -1.227* .467 .010 -2.156 -.298 Yellow -.727 .467 .123 -1.656 .202 No colour -1.500* .467 .002 -2.429 -.571 Red Blu 1.227* .467 .010 .298 2.156 Yellow .500 .467 .287 -.429 1.429 No colour -.273 .467 .561 -1.202 .656 Yellow Blu .727 .467 .123 -.202 1.656 Red -.500 .467 .287 -1.429 .429 No colour -.773 .467 .102 -1.702 .156 No colour Blu 1.500* .467 .002 .571 2.429 Red .273 .467 .561 -.656 1.202 Yellow .773 .467 .102 -.156 1.702 Table, shows that there is a significant interaction effect between blue and red roses. The calculated value is 0.010 which is less that the critical value of 0.05. This means that among the colours of roses, the blue and the red colours impact the decisions or responses of participants in choosing how warm the picture of the woman was. In addition, when participants were not presented with roses there was a significant interaction when they were presented with the picture of the woman wearing the red jumper. Results on general attitude: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable: General attitude Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Corrected Model 33.080a 7 4.726 2.128 .050 Intercept 2478.284 1 2478.284 1116.116 .000 Roses_colour 10.580 3 3.527 1.588 .199 Jumper .557 1 .557 .251 .618 Roses_colour * Jumper 21.943 3 7.314 3.294 .025 Error 177.636 80 2.220 Total 2689.000 88 Corrected Total 210.716 87 The colour of the jumper and the colour of the roses in the priming picture have been proven to be significant. . The computed probability gives a value of 0.025 which is much lower than the set critical value of 0.05. Table 5: Pairwise comparison for general attitude Pairwise Comparisons Dependent Variable:General attitude (I) Roses_colour (J) Roses_colour Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.a 95% Confidence Interval for Difference Lower Bound Upper Bound Blu Red -.591 .449 .192 -1.485 .303 Yellow -.136 .449 .762 -1.030 .758 No colour -.864 .449 .058 -1.758 .030 Red Blu .591 .449 .192 -.303 1.485 Yellow .455 .449 .315 -.440 1.349 No colour -.273 .449 .546 -1.167 .621 Yellow Blu .136 .449 .762 -.758 1.030 Red -.455 .449 .315 -1.349 .440 No colour -.727 .449 .109 -1.621 .167 No colour Blu .864 .449 .058 -.030 1.758 Red .273 .449 .546 -.621 1.167 Yellow .727 .449 .109 -.167 1.621 Based on estimated marginal means The responses of participants to the priming images involving the blue coloured roses and the priming condition involving no roses are directly affected by such initial activity. In other words, the participants who looked at the pictures of either blue coloured roses or no roses they have been influenced in terms of their general attitude rating of the picture than the rest of the priming images. The statistical analysis using SPSS (see table 5) shows that the probability has been determined to equal to 0.058 making it lesser than the critical value and therefore shows a significant interaction. The results also showed that the attractiveness of the woman when wearing the red jumper was significantly lower when participants were primed with blue roses. Discussion: 1)Attractiveness: It was observed that there was correlation between the colour observed by the participant before viewing the target object .It was observed that significant effect of the participant in visually observing the target subject depend on the colour that he/she has seen prior to the observation of the subject. The red colour roses showed the maximum correlation effect to the target object that is the jumper. The values of the F-test signify that colour of the jumper has no correlation to the decision making of the participant in determining the level of attractiveness of the women with the jumper .The attractiveness scale also show that the rose colour was the least insignificant in the correlation factor. 2)Warmness: The study on warmness proved that there is a correlation between the colour of the roses observed by the participant before viewing the coloured jumpers. The colour of the roses here become a significant factor in determining the level of warmness the participant when he/she observes the women in jumper but at the same time the colour of the jumper did not play a role here in determining the warmness level. In case of pair wise comparisons the study disclosed that there is well observed correlation between blue and red colour. Blue and red colours did influence in deciding the warmness of picture of the women. In the same study to the when the participants were not exposed to any of the colours of the roses a noticeable outcome was performed by the participants in observing the women wearing the red jumper. 3)General attitude: In relation to the general attitude it was observed that all the three colours had a significant effect on the attitude level of the participant towards seeing the women in the jumper. In case of pair wise comparison it was disclosed that the participants who were primed with blue colour showed a significant effect on analyzing the degree of general attitude to the women in jumper. The same result of blue colour was observed in case where the participant was not given any priming colour. The rest of the priming colour did not have any significant effect on the attitude of the participant in relation to the women in jumper. Conclusion: In conclusion it can be put forward that priming colours due has an effect in attracting the person to a object. The colour of dress of a person does not have much effect on the degree of attraction by the observer but at the same time priming colours do make the difference. The warmness level showed up a completely different result when compared to attractiveness in relation to priming colours. The colour of jumper at the same time did not affect the determination of warmness. Pair wise comparisons had effect of the degree of warmness. The three priming colours had an effect on determining the general attitude of the participant. Reference List Bartels, A. & Zeki, S., 2000. The architecture of the colour centre in the human visual brain: new results and a review. European Journal of Neuroscience, (12.1), pp.172-193. Brietmeyer, B. et al., 2004. Unconscious colour priming occurs at stimulus-Not percept-dependent Levels of processing. Psychological science, (15.3), pp. 192-202. Engel, S. et al., 1997. Colour tuning in human visual cortex measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. 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Visual attention amplifies response priming of pointing movements to colour targets. Perception and Psychophysics, (70.3), pp. 443-455. Simon, J.R., 1998. A priming effect in a choice reaction time task. Acta Psychological, (69.1), pp. 45-60. Read More