Red and Romantic Rivalry

Viewing another woman in red increases perceptions of sexual receptivity, derogation, and intentions to mate-guard.

Research has shown that men perceive women wearing red, relative to other colors, as more attractive and more sexually receptive; women’s perceptions of other women wearing red have scarcely been investigated. Adam D. Pazda, Pavol Prokop and Andrew J. Elliot hypothesized that women would also interpret female red as a sexual receptivity cue, and that this perception would be accompanied by rival derogation and intentions to mate-guard. Experiment 1 demonstrated that women perceive another woman in a red, relative to white, dress as sexually receptive. Experiment 2 demonstrated that women are more likely to derogate the sexual fidelity of a woman in red, relative to white. Experiment 3 revealed that women are more likely to intend to guard their romantic partner from a woman wearing a red, relative to a green, shirt. These results suggest that some color signals are interpreted similarly across sex, albeit with associated reactions that are sex-specific.

Adam D. Pazda, Pavol Prokop, and Andrew J. Elliot: Red and Romantic Rivalry: Viewing Another Woman in Red Increases Perceptions of Sexual Receptivity, Derogation, and Intentions to Mate-Guard. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 0146167214539709, first published on July 11, 2014 doi:10.1177/0146167214539709

Colorful Language: The Results

It has been almost a year since we mentioned Eleanor Maclure's survey on Colorful Language. First of all, congratulations to Eleanor for a successful graduation! In fact, she has since completed the course and produced an illustrated report of the results of the survey.

The report is easier to look through on Eleanor's issuu profile, but she also has the PDF available to download from her blog. There are other parts to the project which are more visual explorations of color and language as well, she did a number different things for her MA because it is such a big area to study.

Enjoy!

color semiotics survey

I has been almost a year since we posted on Maryam's color semiotics research.
Everyone is talking about it these days, but where can we find a certain rule or framework which defines it? What parameters are involved? Is this framework useful for designers? Can it be communicated? Can its variation be modelled?

Last January 23^rd Maryam reached the 1800^th response to her survey. This is the last chance for your participation before her ultimate analysis. Please take to survey now at https://www.keysurvey.co.uk/votingmodule/s180/survey/365495/1a02/

Colored Time

"I have a meeting at purple o'clock." Say what!?

Meet the TimeHue® clock that represents time in HSL color space.

Frankly, I don't get it. Looks to me like a huge impedance mismatch for cognition. I'd have to keep checking my watch to decode it.

Colorful Language

Eleanor Maclure graduated from BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Nottingham Trent University in 2006 and worked as a graphic designer for a large international architectural practice until the start of 2010. She has studied part time for an MA in graphic design at London College of Communication.

Currently she is a postgraduate design student and is doing research about how we communicate color to each other, looking at some of the issues with understanding color names.

Her interest in how people talk about color stems from a range of sources; discussions about re-branding at her previous employer, the way colors are described in fashion trend reporting, and the fact that people have endless disagreements over the color of some objects due to our subjective experiences of color.

Eleanor has a survey that she doing for her research and you can help her by taking part at her survey at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T2PCTBK.

Color semiotics

Color semiotics: everyone is talking about it these days, but where can we find a certain rule or framework which defines it? What parameters are involved? Is this framework useful for designers? Can it be communicated? Can its variation be modelled?

Meet Maryam M. Darrodi, who is trying to answer all of these questions in her Ph.D. research under supervision of Professor Stephen Westland in the University of Leeds.

But there is a part for you too. You can join her Global Online Survey about Colour Semiotics in your very own native language and answer a few questions about a certain color by just clicking on this link: https://www.keysurvey.co.uk/survey/365495/1a02/.

This survey takes less than 3 minutes and you can participate as many times as you wish (each time you will be presented with a different color).

For more information visit http://coloursemiotics.wordpress.com/.