Human Preferences for Color and Spatial Composition.

摘要人们在视觉展示的图像中对某些颜色和空间构图表现出强烈的偏好，这种偏好普遍影响着许多决定，如购买衣服、度假、装饰房屋和庭院美化。然而，令人惊讶的是，关于人们喜欢什么颜色组合和空间安排，以及他们为什么喜欢它们，科学上知之甚少。之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取了一种科学的描述性方法，通过测量人们的偏好并确定哪些因素决定了这些偏好。此外，他们还发现了为什么人们会有这些偏好。例如，这一系列研究的一个早期发现是，人们对一种给定颜色的平均偏好在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，喜欢位于框架中心或靠近框架中心的对象，但水平偏移以使它们面向框架内(而不是框架外)，并且垂直偏移以使它们在框架内的位置反映其相对于观察者的典型位置(例如，朝向框架顶部的飞鹰和朝向底部的游泳黄貂鱼)。调查人员建议以重要方式扩大这些项目。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方法，通过确定该理论是否能够解释跨文化差异来测试他们的颜色偏好的“生态价位理论”。他们计划使用类似的方法来找出该理论是否也能解释颜色偏好的个体差异。在空间构成领域，他们计划测试一种基于他们所称的围绕物体的“可承受空间”的构成对称性和不对称性理论。拟议的研究项目在科学、艺术和商业之间架起了一座有希望的桥梁，使用严格的科学方法来理解人类的偏好，这些偏好有别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，旨在了解不同领域个人之间的不同偏好模式。例如，喜欢不寻常的、高对比度的色彩组合的人，是否也喜欢非标准的空间构图和不那么传统的音乐？这些问题的答案对商业决策和消费者营销技巧具有重要影响。鉴于拟议对一个研究不足的主题进行的研究具有开创性，许多新发现一方面提供了视觉和认知科学方面的现有科学知识与商业世界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.