The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 16 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
An ecological valence theory of human color preference
Open accessAbstract
Color preference is an important aspect of visual experience, but little is known about why people in general like some colors more than others. Previous research suggested explanations based on biological adaptations [Hurlbert AC, Ling YL (2007) Curr Biol 17:623–625] and color-emotions [Ou L-C, Luo MR, Woodcock A, Wright A (2004) Color Res Appl 29:381–389]. In this article we articulate an ecological valence theory in which color preferences arise from people’s average affective responses to color-associated objects. An empirical test provides strong support for this theory: People like colors strongly associated with objects they like (e.g., blues with clear skies and clean water) and dislike colors strongly associated with objects they dislike (e.g., browns with feces and rotten food). Relative to alternative theories, the ecological valence theory both fits the data better (even with fewer free parameters) and provides a more plausible, comprehensive causal explanation of color preferences.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
A study of colour emotion and colour preference. Part I: Colour emotions for single colours
Ou, L., Luo, M. R., Woodcock, A., & Wright, A. (2004) · Color Research & Application · doi:10.1002/col.20010 · Cited by 664
Biological components of sex differences in color preference
Hurlbert, A. C., & Ling, Y. (2007) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.022 · Cited by 440
A General Theory of Aversion Learninga
GARCIA, J., LASITER, P. S., BERMUDEZ‐RATTONI, F., & DEEMS, D. A. (1985) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1985.tb27060.x · Cited by 403
A Critical and Experimental Study of Colour Preferences
Eysenck, H. J. (1941) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1417683 · Cited by 320
Guilford, J. P., & Smith, P. C. (1959) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1419491 · Cited by 264
A study of colour emotion and colour preference. Part III: Colour preference modeling
Ou, L., Luo, M. R., Woodcock, A., & Wright, A. (2004) · Color Research & Application · doi:10.1002/col.20047 · Cited by 258
Variations in normal color vision II Unique hues
Webster, M. A., Miyahara, E., Malkoc, G., & Raker, V. E. (2000) · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · doi:10.1364/josaa.17.001545 · Cited by 219
NCS—Natural Color System: A Swedish Standard for Color Notation
Hård, A., & Sivik, L. (1981) · Color Research & Application · doi:10.1002/col.5080060303 · Cited by 215
Effects of hue, saturation, and brightness on preference
Camgöz, N., Yener, C., & Güvenç, D. (2002) · Color Research & Application · doi:10.1002/col.10051 · Cited by 200
Qualities of color vision in infancy
Bornstein, M. H. (1975) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/0022-0965(75)90070-3 · Cited by 186
Cited by
Music–color associations are mediated by emotion
Palmer, S. E., Schloss, K. B., Xu, Z., & Prado-León, L. R. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1212562110 · Cited by 403
Self-citationColor and emotion: effects of hue, saturation, and brightness
Wilms, L., & Oberfeld, D. (2018) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-017-0880-8 · Cited by 401
Marković, S. (2012) · i-Perception · doi:10.1068/i0450aap · Cited by 346
Spectral quality of light modulates emotional brain responses in humans.
Vandewalle, G., Schwartz, S., Grandjean, D., Wuillaume, C., Balteau, E., Degueldre, C., Schabus, M., Phillips, C., Luxen, A., Dijk, D. J., et al. (2010) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1010180107 · Cited by 255
Micro-valences: perceiving affective valence in everyday objects
Lebrecht, S., Bar, M., Barrett, L. F., & Tarr, M. J. (2012) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00107 · Cited by 211
Metadata
- Authors
- Palmer, S. E., & Schloss, K. B.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-04-26
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 19
- Pages
- 8877-8882
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2054610617
- Cited by
- 744
- References
- 16
- FWCI
- 25.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: An ecological valence theory of human color preference. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.0906172107
- The paper
- Palmer, S. E., & Schloss, K. B. (2010). An ecological valence theory of human color preference. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0906172107
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.