The Color Red Is Implicitly Associated With Social Status in the United Kingdom and China

Biochemical Characterization of New Sweet Orange Mutants Rich in Lycopene and β-Carotene Antioxidants

Carotenoid-rich foods such as citrus fruits have a wide range of functions in human health. They primarily exert antioxidant effects, but individual carotenoids may also act through other health-promoting mechanisms such as β-carotene as pro-vitamin A. Here, we show that red-fleshed sweet oranges grown in tropical climates are 4-9 times richer in carotenoids than their orange-fleshed counterparts, regardless of their maturation stage. The most significant difference observed between both varieties was the presence of lycopene at moderate concentrations (around 8 µg/g FW) in the mature pulp of the red varieties, which was absent in the blond ones. This is because the red-fleshed sweet oranges grown in tropical climates with high temperatures increase lycopene and β-carotene concentrations in their pulp during fruit maturation. Due to lycopene accumulation, red orange juice offers a promising addition to popular blond-orange, with the new varieties Carrancas and Pinhal being perfectly suitable for blending to enhance juice colour. Sao Paulo, one of the world's leading citrus orange juice producers, as well as other tropical citrus regions could benefit from cultivating using such lycopene-rich cultivars and industrially.

Highly effective ultrafiltration membranes based on plastic waste for dye removal from water

Applicable and low-cost ultrafiltration membranes based on waste polystyrene (WPS) blend and poly vinylidene fluoride (PVDF) were effectively cast on nonwoven support using phase inversion method. Analysis was done into how the WPS ratio affected the morphology and antifouling performance of the fabricated membranes. Cross flow filtration of pure water and various types of polluted aqueous solutions as the feed was used to assess the performance of the membranes. The morphology analysis shows that the WPS/PVDF membrane layer has completely changed from a spongy structure to a finger-like structure. In addition, the modified membrane with 50% WPS demonstrated that the trade-off between selectivity and permeability is met by a significant improvement in the rejection of the membrane with a reduction in permeate flux due to the addition of PVDF. With a water permeability of 50 LMH and 44 LMH, respectively, the optimized WPS-PVDF membrane with 50% WPS could reject 81% and 74% of Congo red dye (CR) and methylene blue dye (MB), respectively. The flux recovery ratio (FRR) reached to 88.2% by increasing PVDF concentration with 50% wt. Also, this membrane has the lowest irreversible fouling (Rir) value of 11.7% and lowest reversible fouling (Rr) value of 27.9%. The percent of cleaning efficiency reach to 71%, 90%, and 85% after eight cycles of humic acid (HA), CR, and MB filtration, respectively, for the modified PS-PVDF (50%-50%). However, higher PVDF values cause the membrane's pores to become clogged, increase the irreversible fouling, and decrease the cleaning efficiency. In addition to providing promising filtration results, the modified membrane is inexpensive because it was made from waste polystyrene, and as a result, it could be scaled up to treat colored wastewater produced by textile industries. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Recycling of plastic waste as an UF membrane for water/wastewater treatment was successfully prepared and investigated. Mechanical properties showed reasonable response with adding PVDF. The modified membrane with 50% PS demonstrated that the trade-off between selectivity and permeability is met by a significant improvement in the rejection.

An automatic red-female association tested by the Stroop task

Colors have been reported to be associated with genders (e.g., reddish color-females). Here, we investigated color-gender associations (red-female/green-male) among Japanese participants using two Stroop-word categorization tasks. Ten Japanese gendered words were chosen as visual stimuli. In Experiment 1 (N = 23), participants were instructed to indicate whether a target word presented in either red, green, or gray font color was a masculine or feminine word. Results showed a congruency effect of red-female association that red font color facilitated the categorization of feminine words and inhibited the categorization of masculine words compared to other colors. No significant effect of green-male association was observed. Experiment 2 (N = 23 newly recruited participants) examined whether the congruency effect of color-gender associations could bias perceptual font color categorization. Participants were asked to discriminate whether the font color, with low saturation, was red or green while ignoring the word's meaning. Results showed that participants responded faster and made fewer errors when categorizing red font colors for feminine words than masculine words. Additionally, a congruent effect of green-male association on performance accuracy was observed, although it did not affect response times. These results indicate the existence of an automatically activated red-female association, which can influence both conceptual gender categorization and perceptual color processing.

Modified poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanomembranes for dye removal from water - A review

Water contamination due to soluble synthetic dyes has serious concerns. Membrane-based wastewater treatments are emerging as a preferred choice for removing dyes from water. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based nanomembranes have gained much popularity due to their favorable features. This review explores the application of PVDF-based nanomembranes in synthetic dye removal through various treatments. Different fabrication methods to obtain high performance PVDF-based nanomembranes were discussed under surface coating and blending methods. Studies related to use of PVDF-based nanomembranes in adsorption, filtration, catalysis (oxidant activation, ozonation, Fenton process and photocatalysis) and membrane distillation have been elaborately discussed. Nanomaterials including metal compounds, metals, (synthetic/bio)polymers, metal organic frameworks, carbon materials and their composites were incorporated in PVDF membrane to enhance its performance. The advantages and limitations of incorporating nanomaterials in PVDF-based membranes have been highlighted. The influence of nanomaterials on the surface features, mechanical strength, hydrophilicity, crystallinity and catalytic ability of PVDF membrane was discussed. The conclusion of this literature review was given along with future research.

The good, the bad, and the red: implicit color-valence associations across cultures

Cultural differences-as well as similarities-have been found in explicit color-emotion associations between Chinese and Western populations. However, implicit associations in a cross-cultural context remain an understudied topic, despite their sensitivity to more implicit knowledge. Moreover, they can be used to study color systems-that is, emotional associations with one color in the context of an opposed one. Therefore, we tested the influence of two different color oppositions on affective stimulus categorization: red versus green and red versus white, in two experiments. In Experiment 1, stimuli comprised positive and negative words, and participants from the West (Austria/Germany), and the East (Mainland China, Macau) were tested in their native languages. The Western group showed a significantly stronger color-valence interaction effect than the Mainland Chinese (but not the Macanese) group for red-green but not for red-white opposition. To explore color-valence interaction effects independently of word stimulus differences between participant groups, we used affective silhouettes instead of words in Experiment 2. Again, the Western group showed a significantly stronger color-valence interaction than the Chinese group in red-green opposition, while effects in red-white opposition did not differ between cultural groups. Our findings complement those from explicit association research in an unexpected manner, where explicit measures showed similarities between cultures (associations for red and green), our results revealed differences and where explicit measures showed differences (associations with white), our results showed similarities, underlining the value of applying comprehensive measures in cross-cultural research on cross-modal associations.

English colour terms carry gender and valence biases: A corpus study using word embeddings

In Western societies, the stereotype prevails that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. A third possible gendered colour is red. While liked by women, it represents power, stereotypically a masculine characteristic. Empirical studies confirmed such gendered connotations when testing colour-emotion associations or colour preferences in males and females. Furthermore, empirical studies demonstrated that pink is a positive colour, blue is mainly a positive colour, and red is both a positive and a negative colour. Here, we assessed if the same valence and gender connotations appear in widely available written texts (Wikipedia and newswire articles). Using a word embedding method (GloVe), we extracted gender and valence biases for blue, pink, and red, as well as for the remaining basic colour terms from a large English-language corpus containing six billion words. We found and confirmed that pink was biased towards femininity and positivity, and blue was biased towards positivity. We found no strong gender bias for blue, and no strong gender or valence biases for red. For the remaining colour terms, we only found that green, white, and brown were positively biased. Our finding on pink shows that writers of widely available English texts use this colour term to convey femininity. This gendered communication reinforces the notion that results from research studies find their analogue in real word phenomena. Other findings were either consistent or inconsistent with results from research studies. We argue that widely available written texts have biases on their own, because they have been filtered according to context, time, and what is appropriate to be reported.

Polarities influence implicit associations between colour and emotion

Colours are linked to emotional concepts. Research on the effect of red in particular has been extensive, and evidence shows that positive as well as negative associations can be salient in different contexts. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the contextual factor of polarity. According to the polarity-correspondence principle, negative and positive category poles are assigned to the binary response categories (here positive vs. negative valence) and the perceptual dimension (green vs. red) in a discrimination task. Response facilitation occurs only where the conceptual category (valence) and the perceptual feature (colour) share the same pole (i.e., where both are plus or both are minus). We asked participants (n = 140) to classify the valence of green and red words within two types of blocks: (a) where all words were of the same colour (monochromatic conditions) providing no opposition in the perceptual dimension, and (b) where red and green words were randomly mixed (mixed-colour conditions). Our results show that red facilitates responses to negative words when the colour green is present (mixed-colour conditions) but not when it is absent (monochromatic conditions). This is in line with the polarity-correspondence principle, but colour-specific valence-affect associations contribute to the found effects.

Processing the Word Red and Intellectual Performance: Four Replication Attempts

Colors convey meaning and can impair intellectual performance in achievement situations. Even the processing of color words can exert similar detrimental effects. In four experiments, we tried to replicate previous findings regarding the processing of the word “red” (as compared to a control color) on cognitive test scores. Experiments 1 and 2 (Ns = 69 and 104) are direct replications of Lichtenfeld, Maier, Elliot, and Pekrun (2009). Both experiments failed to uncover a red color effect on verbal reasoning scores among high school students and undergraduates (Cohen’s d = 0.04 and –0.23). Experiments 3 and 4 (N = 103 and 1,149) failed to identify an effect of processing red on general knowledge test scores (Cohen’sd = 0.19) and 0.01) among undergraduates and adults. Together, these results do not corroborate the assumption that processing the word red impairs intellectual performance.