The Effect Of Red On Ambiguous Emotional Face Recognition Under Different Situational Concepts Priming

In our daily life,there are many kinds of colors everywhere.More and more studies have shown that color as a sensitive environmental factor not only has emotional meaning,but also affects individual behavior and psychological function.Previous studies of color have mostly focused on the general association of color(especially red)on individual cognition and behavior.previous studies have shown that the effect of red on individual behavior and psychological function seems not to be single,and can be roughly divided into the following aspects: 1)Red-Negative association.Studies have shown that using a red pen for an achievement test will significantly impair the subject's performance.2)Red-positive association.Studies by Elliot have shown that individuals tend to think that heterosexual individuals in red clothes are more attractive,and Kirsch's research supports this conclusion.Elliot's color-in-context theory(CIC)shows that individuals' perceptions of color stimuli come from experience in biology and social learning.That means,the influence of color on individuals depends on the specific social situation,and the influence of the same color on people is different in different situations or cultures.Although previous studies on the effect of red on individual behavior and psychological function are not consistent.However,in the related research of emotions,the consistent results of Western studies indicate that red is associated with negative emotions.Some researchers have found that red may has strong anger and infringement meaning.And some researchers believe that red is associated with negative emotions without giving specific concepts and backgrounds.Facial expression as an important part of emotional expression,plays an important role in the individual's social interaction.In daily life,humans often relay on the background information from the environment to fulfill the process of facial emotional recognition.Therefore,color as a stimulus which contains many social and biological information,may has an impact on the recognition of emotional faces.Some previous research using non-Chinese subjects consistently show that red as a background can affect the processing of facial emotional recognition,and negative emotions are connected.Compared with most Western countries,red has a very strong positive meaning in Chinese culture.Researchers using neutral faces as research materials suggest that red may allow individuals to recognize neutral faces more positively.Obviously,the research results of red and facial emotional recognition between China and other foreign countries are different.But unlike the numerous and repeatable research in the West,there are few studies on red and face emotion recognition in China(only neutral faces are involved),and the response indicators are little(such as the percentage of emotional category judgments).However,exploring the influence of color on face emotion recognition is very important for us to understand the emotional meaning of color and to understand the application of color in interpersonal communication.Therefore,it is necessary to synthesize multiple indicators to explore the role of the recognition of emotional faces in red as a background in Chinese culture.According to previous studies,researchers often use ambiguous emotional faces(such as neutral faces and surprised faces)whose emotional recognition relies on context as research materials,to better explore the background context effects.Therefore,the purpose of the first experiment was to explore what emotional meaning the red has when it is not given in a specific concept and background,and how it affects the neutral emotional face when it is used as a background.The independent variables are color background(red,gray,green)and neutral faces(male,female).The dependent variable is the subjective score of color and the subjective score of the face valence.We hypothesized that among the subjects in the Chinese cultural context,red made the subjects feel happy,and when the neutral face pictures were presented in the red background,the participants tend to have a more positive assessment of the faces.The experimental results show that 1)red and green are both considered to have positive meanings when no specific concept and background are given,and 2)face valence scores on red background and gray background are significantly lower than green background,and significantly lower than Intermediate value 4.That is,the red background makes the neutral face looks more unpleasant than the green background.The red color is wildly used in China not only in the "Chinese flag","red scarf","red army",which shows positive energy symbolizes the political significance of the country,but also the traditional festivals(such as the Spring Festival)and festive scenes(Such as Chinese wedding)and other positive meanings.On the other hand,red also conveys dangerous and potential threat information in Chinese life,and this has cross-cultural consistency.For example,the teacher corrects a homework with a red pen,the student's wrong answer will be marked with an "X",a blood that represents dangerous injury,a red light for traffic lights,and a red warning and prohibition light in traffic rules and so on.Therefore,the emotional meaning of red in Chinese culture is more complicated.On the one hand,due to the individual's color-physiological connection,red is connected with the meaning of anger or danger and violation;on the other hand,due to China's unique red culture,red adds a positive meaning to happiness.Therefore,the second experiment is to explore how the red color will affect the neutral face emotional recognition under different concept primings.We set up three sets of concept priming groups in the experiment: The Spring Festival concept priming group corresponds to the cultural concept that symbolizes positive meaning,and the correction concept priming group corresponds to the negative concept of cross-cultural consistency,and the neutral concept priming group is the control group.Participants were asked to subjectively score faces after the concept priming task.Based on the results of Experiment 1,we hypothesized that participants were more pleasantly rated for neutral faces under the conditions of the Chinese New Year concept when compared with the correction and neutral concept priming.The results of the study showed that: 1)Compared with the correction concept priming group,the decline of positive emotions on the Spring Festival group were significantly less.It shows that our concept is effective,but the concept initiation does not affect the assessment of subsequent neutral faces.2)Neutral faces in the red background were evaluated more unpleasantly compared to the green background,and were not significantly different with the neutral face valence scores on the gray background,and all scores were significantly lower than Intermediate value 4.3)Male faces are evaluated more negatively than female faces.Although neutral faces are generally considered to have a neutral meaning,it has been found in research that neutral faces are not “neutral” and usually induce negative assessments.Therefore,in order to explore whether the research results in the previous two studies are due to the inherent characteristics of the material(i.e.,the neutral face).We conducted experiment 3.Experiment 3used another ambiguous emotional face—the surprised face— as the research material,which can be identified as a positive surprise or a negative shock according to different background information.The experimental operation of Experiment 3 combines Experiment 1 and Experiment2,and expands the number of dependent variables.We assume: 1)Compared to the green background,the surprised faces in the red background were evaluated more unpleasantly,and there was no significant difference from the neutral face emotional scores on the gray background,and all the scores were significantly lower than the Intermediate value 5.(2 The male face is evaluated more negatively than the female face.The results showed that: 1)compared with the green background,the percentage of unpleasant judgments,the reaction time,the face emotional expression scores and the emotional valence scores convergent indicated that the surprised faces in the red background would be evaluated as more unpleasant.2)Compared to male surprised faces,female surprised faces are evaluated more negatively.Based on the above results,the study has the following conclusions:1.Red is considered to express a positive and pleasant meaning in China.2.Different concept priming only can affect the subjective emotional feelings of the participants,but it does not affect the emotional recognition of the faces.3.Neutral faces are more negatively recognized on a red background than on a green background;and male faces are more unpleasant to be recognized.4.Compared to the green background,the surprised faces are more negatively recognized in the red background;and the female faces are more unpleasantly to be recognized.