Psychological effects of colours

 Psychological effects of Colours:

According to Carl Jung, deep down in human's psyche is collective unconscious where there are content of archetypes, the original pattern or model from which other things of the same kind are made. Those are the foundation images that are developed and formed from our ancestors through thousands of years. Colour is a part of our psychological and biological heritage therefore sometimes we response to colour in certain way, for example, we think that red is hot and blue is cool, these are found to be universal responses.

But colour is also quite personal since each individual has their own personality and their preferences of colour are diverse. As Jung also mentioned about the extravert and introvert type of personality and it is found that these types of personality have dissimilar colour preferences: the extraverted personality type has dissimilar colour preferences: the extraverted personality type has a greater tendency toward more intensive stimulation, so they are enjoved more in colourful surroundings, whiles introverted pers ality type of people are more favour lower degree of stimulation, and lower intensity of colour are preferred.

Colour Association:

Colour symbolism is a learned behaviour but it has associative power that it affects how we perceive a colour and the mood or emotion that produced by it, for example, red can conveys excitement and romantic mood, green always help promote relaxation, and brown is the cozy colour that is always create stable and comfortable atmosphere. Given that colour symbolism is learned, some colours can convey universal messages while others may vary by ethnicity, cultural, or socioeconomic background.

As colour symbolism is playing an important part of human life, understanding the symbolism of colour is vital in various fields, such as fashion, products, advertising and interior.

Colour and Senses: 

Colour is also found considerably affect our other senses - hear, taste, smell and touch, etc. in Gestalt psychology the entire organism is looked upon as a unity that the centres for processing sensory information are linked to each other, leading to chain of reactions. Here are some examples to show how colours effects other senses. 

Perception of Temperature:

The colour of a room will affect the perception of temperature. In an experiment a group of people was placed in a red-orange painted room for some time and the other group of people were in a blue-green painted room, the temperature of the two rooms were the same. It was found that most people in the red-orange room felt warm and the people in the blue-green room felt cooler. Therefore it is useful in interior design where the location and use of energy is also being considered. For example, it can use cool tone in room that is facing west so as to make the occupant feels cooler and it can also a way of saving energy.

Perception of Noise and Sound:

Colour also has an effect on the perception of noise and sound. Studies showed that the bright warm colours are associated with loudness and the opposite for cool colours. It may be because people mentally connect a loud red with one of high saturation and the high saturated hues are usually considered to be high-pitched and shrill sounds. These findings are particularly useful in interior decoration for different settings such as clubs and restaurants.

Association of Odour and Taste:

Some studies also found that colours are associated with smell and taste. For instance, pink is associated with sweetish, yellow is sour, orange is strong, and green is sour and juicy. It is also found that pink, lavender, pale yellow and green have pleasant smell. Hence, we can find most candies are in pink packaging. On the other hand, blue is found to be an appetite suppressant so it is avoid using it in restaurant or food packaging. However, it is a good choice to use for weight-loss plan, for example, blue plate or blue light in refrigerator will definitely work.