Date of Award
2010
Publisher
North Dakota State University
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Awarded
Master of Science (MS)
Program
Psychology
Department
Psychology
College
Science and Mathematics
Faculty Advisor
Robinson, Michael D.
Description
Metaphor is often used to represent abstract concepts using concrete domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). One set of metaphors that has long been of interest, but seldom studied, is the set of those linking color and emotion. Specifically, red and anger are often linked in everyday language and popular media. There is a recent body of work on metaphoric representation processes, yet none of it has focused on color perception. The present studies investigate the effects of priming anger-related concepts and experiences on the visual perception of color. It was predicted that participants would perceive degraded color screens as red following the activation of anger-related thoughts (Study 1) and when made angry (Study 2), consistent with the "seeing red" metaphor for anger. Both hypotheses were supported. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Fetterman, Adam Kent, "I'm Seeing Red!Literally: The Effect of Metaphoric Representation on Perception" (2010). Psychology. 24.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/psychology/24
Rights
NDSU policy 190.6.2
Rights Link
https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf
Handle Identifier
https://hdl.handle.net/10365/33740