Emotion Expression and Color: Their Joint Influence on Perceived Attractiveness and Social Position

Primates are apparently unique amongst the mammals in possessing trichromatic colour vision. However, not all primates are trichromatic. Amongst the haplorhine (higher) primates, the catarrhines possess uniformly trichromatic colour vision, whereas most of the platyrrhine species exhibit polymorphic colour vision, with a variety of dichromatic and trichromatic phenotypes within the population. It has been suggested that trichromacy in primates and the reflectance functions of certain tropical fruits are aspects of a coevolved seed-dispersal system: primate colour vision has been shaped by the need to find coloured fruits amongst foliage, and the fruits themselves have evolved to be salient to primates and so secure dissemination of their seeds. We review the evidence for and against this hypothesis and we report an empirical test: we show that the spectral positioning of the cone pigments found in trichromatic South American primates is well matched to the task of detecting fruits against a background of leaves. We further report that particular trichromatic platyrrhine phenotypes may be better suited than others to foraging for particular fruits under particular conditions of illumination; and we discuss possible explanations for the maintenance of polymorphic colour vision amongst the platyrrhines.

Color is a ubiquitous perceptual stimulus that is often considered in terms of aesthetics. Here we review theoretical and empirical work that looks beyond color aesthetics to the link between color and psychological functioning in humans. We begin by setting a historical context for research in this area, particularly highlighting methodological issues that hampered earlier empirical work. We proceed to overview theoretical and methodological advances during the past decade and conduct a review of emerging empirical findings. Our empirical review focuses especially on color in achievement and affiliation/attraction contexts, but it also covers work on consumer behavior as well as food and beverage evaluation and consumption. The review clearly shows that color can carry important meaning and can have an important impact on people's affect, cognition, and behavior. The literature remains at a nascent stage of development, however, and we note that considerable work on boundary conditions, moderators, and real-world generalizability is needed before strong conceptual statements and recommendations for application are warranted. We provide suggestions for future research and conclude by emphasizing the broad promise of research in this area.