Lakoff and Johnson (1999) saw that there are many proverbs and sayings that have to do with form characteristics and emotions. Thick: rich, important, thin: poor, unimportant.
black-shape-Q
Area proportion
The relation with area proportion (size of the coloured object) appears to be most significant for the heavy / light colour emotional scale. This creates a relationship of meaning between the colour quality heavy / light and the shape quality large / small. (Wang, 2007)
Thin and thick shapes
Complexity is felt with many thin, round shaped parts. Thick shapes feel warmer than thin ones and will appear more in a colour palette with a large lightness contrast. A thick shape is placed rather structured in a sober composition. Thick correlates strongly with large, thin with small. (Michiels, 2016)
Sharp versus blunt
The size of an angle can be determined by measuring the angle that two lines make with each other. This angle can be expressed in both degrees and radiants. The larger the angle, the more blunt it is. And conversely, the smaller the angle between two lines, the sharper. The emotional effect of sharp corners … Continue reading Sharp versus blunt
Proverbs and sayings: oblique-crooked
Oblique lines have a negative connotation in language. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) saw that there are many proverbs and sayings that have to do with form characteristics and emotions. Oblique / crooked: wrong, unacceptable, poor, ugly.
Proverbs and sayings: open-closed
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) saw that there are many proverbs and sayings that have to do with form characteristics and emotions. Open / empty / bald: honest, neat, welcome, hospitable, logical, poor, soft. Closed: unfair, messy, meaningless.
The openness characteristic of shape
The openness characteristic of shape can also be found in body posture. Someone who does not feel secure in the presence of another closes his position. Then he crosses his arms or legs or holds an object in front of himself. With that he shields himself from a too intimate approach. If we feel more … Continue reading The openness characteristic of shape
Nakedness and sexual preference
It is true that one sex tends to be more naked than the other, and Darwin made use of this in his own sexual selection theory of the loss of human hair. He supposed that ancestral males chose females rather than the other way around as is normal in the animal kingdom, and that they … Continue reading Nakedness and sexual preference
Innate programming of up and down in chicks
Newly hatched baby chicks peck at photographs of simulated grains, and strongly prefer them if lit as if from above. Turn the photograph over and they shun it. This seems to show that baby chicks 'know' that light in their world normally comes from above. But since they have only just hatched out of the … Continue reading Innate programming of up and down in chicks
The lighting of up and down
One of the main differences between up and down in the world is the predominant direction of light. While not necessarily directly overhead, the sun's rays generally come from above rather than below. This fact opens an important way in which we, and many other animals, can recognise solid three-dimensional objects. It works in reverse. … Continue reading The lighting of up and down
Up and down in the story of evolution
(About the primaeval worm, our ancestor of 590 million years ago.) Why is there a dorsal side and a ventral side? The argument is similar (as with the fore and aft asymmetry), and the one applies to starfish just as much as to worms. Gravity being what it is, there are lots of inevitable differences … Continue reading Up and down in the story of evolution
‘Something great’ and colour in Germany
Something great: black 23%, blue 18%, white 13%, ... Heller E. (1989)
Heavy, lightweight and their correlations
Osgood's Research (1957) made a significant correlation between heavy and hard with big, while lightweight is sensed rather fine and small. “Now we know, from our factor analytic work, that up, small, light-weight and white tend to go together in meaning and metaphor as opposed to down, large, heavy, and black.”