Colors are powerful tools for communicating emotion. In film, art, and design, colors signal a wide variety of emotions, including happiness, sadness, and anger. Traditionally, the emotional associations of colors are discussed in terms of hue: e.g., yellow is happy, blue is sad, and red is angry. However, we present evidence that this hue-based account can be misleading and even erroneous, and argue that it has stood in the way of answering deeper questions concerning how color-emotion associations are formed and why they exist. The present study set out to determine whether there is a hue-based component to the happiness vs. sadness of colors, after controlling for chroma and lightness. It was motivated by two key components. First, color-emotion spaces (e.g., as determined through multidimensional scaling) are primarily structured according to the dimensions of saturation and lightness. Second, the most saturated (and most prototypical) yellow is brighter than the most saturated (and most prototypical) blue. In an effort to test saturated colors, studies on color emotion associations have typically confounded hue and lightness by testing lighter yellows and darker blues. Has yellow been shown to be happier than blue, merely because it was lighter? We addressed this question by having participants rate the happiness vs. sadness of 32 colors (8 hues x 2 lightness (L*) levels x 2 chroma (c*) levels).

Lightness dominated their judgments (82% variance explained). Within light colors, happiness was not modulated by yellowness-blueness, but within dark saturated colors, bluer colors were actually happier than yellower colors. A follow-up experiment using colors that were perceptually matched for saturation showed the same pattern. The results imply that in the pursuit of understanding color-happiness associations, we should ask why lighter color are happier, and asking why yellower colors are happier has been the wrong question.

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Ausgehend von einer lexikographischen Betrachtung und einer Einführung in die Problematik historischer Farben wird eine Betrachtung des Feldes der traditionellen Farben Japans angestellt.
Dabei werden Symbolik, Verwendungskontexte und soziale Markierung der traditionellen Farbsystematik als Referenzsystem verstanden, welches in diversen modernen Kontexten der japanischen Gesellschaft bis heute wirkmächtig ist.

Einen Schwerpunkt der Ausführungen bilden die mit dem Feld traditionelle und historische Farben verbundenen methodischen und definitorischen Probleme sowie die Frage der Repräsentanz in den Neuen Medien und der heutigen Medienkultur.

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Palmer and Schloss (2010) reported that preference for a given color is largely determined by affective responses to all of the objects associated with that color. Their ecological valence theory posits that it would be adaptive for people to engage with objects whose colors they like and to avoid objects whose colors they dislike to the extent that their color preferences are correlated with objects that are beneficial/harmful to them. Palmer and Schloss developed an empirical procedure to measure the WAVEs (weighted affective valence estimates) of colors. Each color’s WAVE is the average valence (liking/disliking) rating for all object descriptions given as associations of that color, with each object-valence rating weighted by how well it matches the color for which it was described. U.S. WAVEs strongly predicted average U.S. color preferences (r = .89). For example, people generally like blues and cyans partly because they like blue and cyan objects, such as clear sky and clean water, whereas they generally dislike greenish-browns partly because they dislike greenish-brown objects, such as biological wastes and rotting food.

Color preferences are influenced by color-related experiences　within one’s lifetime. Such experiences include a multitude of culturally specific experiences with ecological objects. For example, ecological factors might influence differences between U.S. and Japanese color preferences. Yokosawa, Schloss, Asano, & Palmer (in press) reported that Japanese and U.S. color preferences have both similarities (e.g., peaks around blue, troughs around dark-yellow, and preferences for saturated colors) and differences (e.g., Japanese participants like darker colors less than U.S. participants do). The ecological valence theory implies that within-culture WAVE-preference correlations should be higher than between-culture WAVE-preference correlations. The results supported these predictions. However, object-based WAVEs in Japan predict Japanese color preferences somewhat less strongly (r = .61) than object-based U.S. WAVEs predict U.S. color preferences (r = .89).

Why might object-based WAVEs explain so much less variance in Japan than in the U.S.? Following Palmer, Schloss, Guo, Wung, Chai & Peng (submitted), we hypothesized that symbolic/conceptual associations with colors may also contribute to Japanese color preferences. Symbolic WAVEs were calculated using the same procedure as for object-based WAVEs, except restricting people’s color associations to symbols and abstract concepts. The correlation between color preferences and the symbolic WAVEs in Japan (r = .57) was comparable to that between color preferences and object-based WAVEs (r = .61). Including both symbolic and object WAVEs produced a multiple-R of .72, indicating that both object and symbolic/conceptual associations with colors contribute to single color preferences in Japan. Further analyses show that symbolic WAVEs were as highly correlated with color preferences as object-based WAVEs were in Japan, but not in the U.S. (r = .58 for symbols; r = .89 for objects). Object and symbolic/conceptual associations with colors thus have comparable impact on Japanese single color preferences. This suggests that, unlike in the US where object associations have a dominant role in color preferences, object and symbolic associations contribute equally to color preferences in Japan.

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The appearance of object surface could be largely influenced by lighting conditions such as color, direction and diffuseness. The diffuseness of illumination would change the components of specular and diffuse reflection resulting difference in the perceived quality of object surface. However, it has not been systematically analyzed how color and surface appearance of an object is influenced by the diffuseness.

We investigated how the impression of surface appearance of test samples changes under diffused light and direct light using real samples in real miniature rooms. We prepared plane gray test samples with three different levels of surface roughness and gray spheres with matt and gloss surface. A sample was placed in the center of a miniature room with either diffuse or directed light, and observer evaluated its appearance. We used a semantic differential method to examine what types of factors were influenced by the diffusibility of illumination. The result of analysis based on 20 adjective-pairs showed that glossiness and smoothness were main factors. Samples tended to appear less glossy and smother under diffused light than under direct light, and their difference was larger for a sample with rough surface.

We also examined the color appearance of several color samples under diffused light and direct light by selecting corresponding color from a Munsell color chart placed in a separate viewing box. The results of corresponding color were similar in both lighting conditions, suggesting color appearance was stable at least for samples that we tested.

Our results suggest that the appearance of surface qualities such as glossiness and smoothness are more influenced by the diffusibility of illumination than color appearance. It also implies that the surface properties of objects should be considered when examining the influence of diffusibility of illumination on surface appearance.

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Wie sehen Schmetterlinge Blumen? Ihre Augen und ihr Farbsehen

Flower-visiting butterflies have color vision, including some sophisticated aspects such as color constancy and simultaneous color contrast. Unlike the trichromatic retinas of humans (blue, green and red cones (plus rods)) and honeybees (UV, blue and green cells), we have found that the compound eyes of butterflies contain six, nine or even fifteen photoreceptor classes in species-specific manner. The eyes of the Japanese yellow swallowtail, Papilio xuthus, contain six classes (UV, violet, blue, green, red and broad-band) of receptors. The six classes of receptors are embedded in small units called ommatidia, each housing nine photoreceptor cells, in three fixed combinations; the Papilio eye is a patchwork of spectrally-heterogeneous ommatidia. For example, one type of ommatidia contains the UV, blue, green and red receptors, together forming a single light-guiding rhabdom. Such organization of rhabdom well explains why Papilio butterflies can discriminate colors of dots whose size correspond to their single pixel. At the molecular level, the Papilio retina expresses five visual pigment opsins. There is therefore no one-to-one relationship between the visual pigments and photoreceptor spectral sensitivities. UV and violet receptors actually share an UV-absorbing visual pigment, while the broad-band receptors coexpress a green-absorbing and a red-absorbing visual pigments, which violates the one receptor-one opsin dogma in vision science. The six classes of receptors are embedded in small units called ommatidia, each housing nine photoreceptor cells, in three fixed combinations; the Papilio eye is a patchwork of spectrally-heterogeneous ommatidia. For example, one type of ommatidia contains the UV, blue, green and red receptors, together forming a single light-guiding rhabdom. Such organization of rhabdom well explains why Papilio butterflies can discriminate colors of dots whose size correspond to their single pixel. At the molecular level, the Papilio retina expresses five visual pigment opsins. There is therefore no one-to-one relationship between the visual pigments and photoreceptor spectral sensitivities. UV and violet receptors actually share an UV-absorbing visual pigment, while the broad-band receptors coexpress a green-absorbing and a red-absorbing visual pigments, which violates the one receptor-one opsin dogma in vision science. Do Papilio use all six for seeing colors, i.e., is Papilio hexachromatic? Trichromatic systems have their best wavelength discrimination ability in two wavelength regions. We found foraging Papilio can discriminate about 1 nm difference in three wavelength regions, which appear even better than in humans. Analysis of the behavioral data using the receptor-noise limited color opponency model indicates that the Papilio color vision is tetrachromatic based on UV, blue, green and red inputs.

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Painting the thin line between art and commerce - digital color grading for cinema and commercials

Zwischen dem "Vorher" und dem "Nachher" liegen bisweilen ganze farbliche Welten: Im Ausdruck und in der Wirksamkeit der gesamten Geschichte, sogar in der grundsätzlichen Aussage der Bilder, die Peter Hacker, von Beruf sogenannter "Digital Colorist" bearbeitet. Die Möglichkeiten sind schier unendlich und dementsprechend schwer ist es, genau den richtigen Farbton, genau den richtigen Mittelweg zu finden. Farbtheorie ist wissenschaftlich belegt, doch jeder Mensch nimmt Farben anders wahr - Peter Hacker jongliert demnach nicht nur mit Farben, sondern auch mit Vorstellungen von Kunden, Agenturen und Regisseuren - und natürlich seiner eigenen kreativen Vision.
Wie das alles unter einen Hut zu bringen ist, wo die Technik endet und Kreativität anfängt, wie man denn überhaupt fantastische Bilder aus "mäßigem" Ausgangsmaterial zaubert und am Ende alle Beteiligten glücklich macht - davon erzählt Peter Hacker anhand vieler praxisnaher und nachvollziehbarer Beispiele in seinem Vortrag.

There can be worlds bewteen"before" and "after" - worlds of colors. In expression, reception, emotion. In a story's total impact. Even the most basic message of images is steered, enhanced, or turned inside-out, by Peter Hacker, a so-called "Digital Colorist". The possibilities are endless and it takes a composer conducting light and colors to find the right notes of coloring and hit the golden mean. While the theory of colors is scientifically established, every human perceives colors differently. Therefore Peter Hacker not only juggles with colors, but also with the imagination and expectations of customers, agencies, and directors - and, of course, with his own artistic creative vision. How to balance all these factors, how technology and creativity mingle, how to conjure up fantasic images based on "mediocre" raw footage to impress all stakeholders at the end - all of this is part of Peter Hackers lecture by showcasing practical examples.

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Inherited Colorblindness in Humans comprises selective dysfunction of defects of the short wavelength-sensitive (SWS), the MWS or the LWS cone or the simultaneous absence of MWS and LWS cone function (termed Blue Cone Monochromacy [BCM]) or all three subtypes of human cone photoreceptors (termed Rod Monochromacy or Achromatopsia [ACHM]). ACHM is a rare, autosomal recessive inherited disorder that features total colorblindness low vision, photophobia and nystagmus. ACHM is genetically heterogeneous and is caused by mutations in genes encoding essential components of the cone phototransduction cascade (cGMP-gated channel, transducin, phosphodiesterase). Surprisingly we recently discovered that also mutations in ATF6, encoding an ER-resident protein stress sensor that participates in the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), can cause ACHM. On the hand, BCM and selective forms of color blindness are genetically more unique and linked to mutations in the genes encoding for the apo-protein of the respective photopigment (cone opsins). Separate genes for LWS and MWS opsins in Old World Primates are a result of a recent local gene duplication on the X-chromosome. The high sequence identity of LWS and MWS opsin genes induces unequal homologous recombination during meiosis that causes changes in copy numbers and the formation of diverse LWS/MWS or MWS/LWS hybrid genes underlying most common selective color vision defects. Subjects with BCM have lost both LWS and MWS opsin function either due to larger deletions including regulatory sequence elements or the presence of loss-of-function mutations in all expressed LWS/MWS opsin gene copies. In this talk I will briefly review the genetic of inherited colorblindness giving emphasis on novel molecular aspects such as splicing defects induced by exon 3 variants and gene conversion events underlying BCM.

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