Human Preferences for Color and Spatial Composition.

摘要 人们对视觉显示图像中的某些颜色和空间构图表现出强烈的偏好，这些偏好普遍影响着许多决策，例如购买衣服、度假、装饰房屋和美化庭院。 然而，令人惊讶的是，对于人们喜欢什么颜色组合和空间布局以及为什么喜欢它们，科学上知之甚少。 以前的许多治疗方法都来自哲学家、艺术家和商业顾问。 加州大学伯克利分校的斯蒂芬·帕尔默博士和他的研究团队采用科学的描述性方法，测量人们的偏好并确定决定这些偏好的因素。 此外，他们还发现人们有这些偏好的原因。 例如，这一系列研究的早期发现是，人们对特定颜色的平均偏好很大程度上取决于他们对具有该颜色特征的物体的喜欢程度。例如，人们通常喜欢蓝色，因为他们通常喜欢晴朗的天空、干净的水和大多数其他类似颜色的物体。 此外，人们表现出强烈和系统的倾向，偏爱位于画面中心或附近的物体，但水平偏移，使它们面向画面（而不是外面），并垂直偏移，使它们在画面中的位置反映它们相对于观看者的典型位置（例如，飞翔的老鹰朝向画面顶部，游泳的黄貂鱼朝向画面底部）。 研究人员建议以重要的方式扩展这些项目。在颜色偏好领域，他们将使用他们之前开发的测试该理论的相同方法，通过确定它是否可以解释跨文化差异来测试颜色偏好的“生态价理论”。 他们计划使用类似的方法来查明该理论是否也可以解释颜色偏好的个体差异。 在空间构图领域，他们计划基于他们所谓的物体周围的“可供性空间”来测试构图对称和不对称理论。 拟议的研究项目在科学、艺术和商业之间提供了有希望的桥梁，使用严格的科学方法来理解人类的偏好，这些偏好不同于经过充分研究的认知（基于知识的）过程。它还定义了新的研究方法，旨在了解不同领域的个体之间的不同偏好模式。例如，喜欢不寻常、高对比度色彩组合的人是否也喜欢非标准的空间构图和不那么传统的音乐？这些问题的答案对于商业决策和消费者营销技巧具有重要意义。鉴于所提议的研究在一个尚未充分研究的主题上的开创性，许多新的发现不断涌现，一方面提供了视觉和认知科学领域的现有科学知识，另一方面提供了商业世界中的实际问题之间的联系。

Abstract People show strong preferences for certain colors and spatial compositions in visually displayed images, preferences that pervasively influence a multitude of decisions, such as buying clothes, taking vacations, decorating homes, and landscaping yards. Yet, surprisingly little is known scientifically about what color combinations and spatial arrangements people like or why they like them. Many previous treatments have come from philosophers, artists, and business consultants. Dr. Stephen Palmer and his research team at University of California -- Berkeley take a scientific, descriptive approach by measuring what people prefer and determining what factors determine these preferences. Further, they are also discovering why people have those preferences. An early discovery of this line of research, for example, is that people's average preference for a given color is largely determined by how much they like the objects that characteristically have that color. For instance, people generally like blues because they generally like clear skies, clean water, and most other similarly colored objects. In addition, people show strong and systematic tendencies to prefer objects that are positioned at or near the center of the frame, but offset horizontally so that they face into (rather than out of) the frame, and offset vertically so that their position within the frame reflects their typical position relative to a viewer (e.g., a flying eagle toward the top of the frame and a swimming stingray toward the bottom). The investigators propose to extend these projects in important ways. In the domain of color preferences, they will test their "ecological valence theory" of color preference by determining whether it can account for cross-cultural differences, using the same methods they have developed to test the theory previously. They plan to use similar methods to find out whether the theory can also account for individual differences in color preferences. In the domain of spatial composition, they plan to test a theory of compositional symmetries and asymmetries based on what they call "affordance spaces" around objects. The proposed research project provides promising bridges among science, art, and business, using rigorous scientific methods to understand human preferences that are distinct from well-studied cognitive (knowledge-based) processes. It also defines new research methods aimed at understanding different patterns of preference between individuals across different domains. Do people who prefer unusual, highly contrasting color combinations, for example, also prefer nonstandard spatial compositions and less conventional music? The answers to such questions have important implications for business decisions and consumer marketing techniques. Given the pioneering nature of the proposed research on an under-studied topic, many new discoveries are being made that provide links between existing scientific knowledge in vision and cognitive science on the one hand and practical issues in the business world on the other.