The Emotional Significance of Color in Television Presentations

A within-subjects experiment was conducted to investigate the emotional effects of color in brief television presentations. The study involved obtaining physiological measures (skin conductance, heart rate, and facial electromyography) during the presentation of 54 short (6-sec) television clips to the study's 34 participants (16 women, 18 men). Self-report measures of the participants'emotional reactions were also obtained. Results indicate that the influence of color appears in the self-reports of emotional experience, but in none of the physiological measures. These results suggest that people feel, or consciously believe they feel, that color pictures are more pleasing and exciting than monochrome versions of the same images, yet there is no difference in their physiological responses. The implications of this dissociation of emotional responses are discussed.