Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In many languages there are concepts for warm and cold colors. Research on color-temperature correspondenceand their interaction is quite scarce, and based mostly on subjective measures. It is still unknown whether and to what extentcolors bear the thermal information. The current study explored the relationship between warm and cold colors (red andblue) and thermal aspects of the word semantics (sun, snow), using the Stroop paradigm in a color categorization task. Itwas hypothesized that if colors activate the thermal meaning then Stroop effect should occur. The results suggested a color-temperature compatibility effect – faster responses when associated color and thermal meaning corresponded (e.g. sun presentedin red). This provides important information on the automaticity of thermal activation during word processing, and on thestrength of conceptual associations in color perception. It was suggested that words induced mental simulation of the thermalconcepts, together with the associated color.