An automatic red-female association tested by the Stroop task

Color-taste correspondence tested by the Stroop task

People consistently associate colors with tastes (e.g., pink-sweet, yellow-sour). However, little has been known on the strength of those color-taste correspondences. The current study examined the congruency effect of color-taste correspondence using two Stroop word categorization tasks. The visual stimuli consisted of food names associated with sweet and sour tastes, presented in different shades of pink and yellow font colors. Participants were instructed to categorize the taste (sweet or sour) of the words in the Stroop word-taste categorization task and to discriminate the font color (pink or yellow) of the words in the Stroop word-color discrimination task. Results showed that participants responded faster in congruent conditions (sweet-pink and sour-yellow) than incongruent conditions (sweet-yellow and sour-pink) in both tasks. Specifically, yellow font colors facilitated the categorization of sour taste words compared to pink font colors, whereas sweet taste words facilitated the discrimination of pink font colors compared to sour taste words. These results provide further evidence for the congruency effect of color-taste correspondence in facilitating the processing of taste-related words and colors. Furthermore, the congruency effect was shown to operate bidirectionally, influencing both the conceptual meaning of tastes and perceptual color perception. This study highlights the significant interference effect of color-taste correspondence on cognitive processing as assessed by the Stroop task.

Red biases sex categorization of human bodies

Color is associated with gender information (e.g., red-female). However, little has been known on the effect of color on sex recognition of human bodies. This study aimed to investigate whether the color red could influence the categorization of human bodies by sex, and the effect of contextual information. Visual stimuli were created using body silhouettes varying along the waist-to-hip ratio from female to male shapes. These stimuli were presented in conjunction with red, green, and gray colors, which were used either as body color (Experiment 1) or background color (Experiment 2). Participants were instructed to categorize the sex of the body stimuli as either male or female by pressing labeled keys. The results showed that when red was used as a body color, it induced a bias toward feminine body perception, while when used as a background color, it induced a bias toward masculine body perception. Thus, the color red influenced the sex categorization of human bodies, which being modulated by contextual information. These findings provided novel insights into the effect of contextual color cues in sex recognition of human bodies.