Color's Perceptual Diversity and Categorical Harmony Improve Aesthetic Experience

How do color features influence visual aesthetic experiences? This issue has been extensively explored yet not fully understood. Previous studies have investigated human preferences for single colors (mainly hue) and color compositions. However, the categorical feature of color is rarely studied in this domain. In our study, we systematically examine how color categories affect aesthetic experiences and disentangle the effect of color categories from the effect of perceptual color features (i.e., hue). Participants were required to rate their preferences for color images composed of three distinct hues from one category, two categories, or three categories. Our study found that color categories influence participants' aesthetic preferences for color images independent of perceptual color features. Participants liked the color image less when there are three color categories in the image compared to when there are one or two categories, suggesting that categorical harmony is vital for aesthetic beauty. In addition, the color images composed of large-distance hues were preferred and perceived as more colorful than those with small-distance hues. These results suggested that these two color-related factors take effects in parallel but in opposite directions. We thus propose that the influence of color on aesthetic preferences follows the principle of low-level diversity and high-level harmony.