Our Services
We bring together competences from academic, scientific, artistic and communication fields to valorize a scientific understanding on how colour affects us. We are keen to share knowledge with the public and hereby enhance awareness of the everyday colour choices we make. As part of this public platform, we offer a number of services to bring science and practice together.
What we offer:
- consulting based on expansive scientific knowledge and know-how
- scientific analysis to answer applied questions empirically
- validation of common practices using scientific research methodology
Our strengths lie in designing studies, training, and transferring state of the art research areas in colour psychology, as illustrated below.
Areas of Services
Fundamental research
Research findings obtained in controlled settings inside or outside of the laboratory form the necessary benchmark to understand causal relationships of factors supposedly underlying human behaviour. We have a solid academic background in developing scientific strategies that provide reliable and valid answers to concrete needs. For practitioners working with colour or chromatic light, we can help to
a) identify possible sources that may contribute to an observed effect (e.g. therapy outcome),
b) control these sources ("variables"),
c) statistically measure their contribution to the observed effect.
Furthermore, as psychologists, we know how to account for naturally occurring biases in human perception, expectations, attention (e.g. placebo effects) as well as affective or motivational tendencies (e.g. stereotypes).
Our environment
Colour experiences are essentially situated: the environments we live, play and work in are richly coloured by nature or by our own doing (textile, paint, architecture). We have extensive experience and knowledge in contextual influences of colour on our perception, cognition, and emotion. We can help to understand the benefits but also limits of effective chromatic design of environments in terms of cognitive and affective functioning (e.g. concentration, social interaction, wellbeing). We exclusively draw from scientific literature and can create validation studies to offer research-based solutions to specific needs such as adapting spaces to enhance relaxation, attention, social interaction.
ART
We have extensive experience in the scientific study of aesthetic appreciation of colours and art objects such as preference judgment (liking and disliking) and emotional responses. We see art exhibitions as real life experiments where the artist and exhibitor invite the spectator to participate in an aesthetic and emotional experience. We can offer insight into the processes involved in these affective experiences. For instance, one might need to understand the impact of colours exposed to the spectator via different media or technologies, or whether certain colours chosen by an artist reflect on their affective state.
HEALTH & hr management
Improvements of psychological health based on the use of colour are often being assumed without scientific foundation. Evidence-based practice in assessing this possibility is crucial to health care environments (hospitals, therapy units) and business organisations interested in optimising human resources (e.g. recruitment, person profiling, self-development). We scientifically advise and study the diagnostic value of colour and the effectiveness of colour-related therapies. For instance, do colour choices represent a person’s affective state, and do they provide reliable indication to social-emotional skills? Can we change a person’s affective state with chromatic exposure (e.g. light, art therapy)?
Technology & Education
New technologies have the potential to alter or even enhance colour-related experiences (e.g. augmented or virtual reality, daylight simulators). Our experience in using cutting-edge digital technology enables us to improve the so far limited understanding of how new technologies affect our colour experience. We can help developers to better take into account chromatic factors of their devices (e.g. lamps, digital interfaces, prints) in order to ensure desirable or avoid undesirable psychological impact. This is particularly at stake in situations where learning takes place. We witness that current and future technologies in general, and refined colour control in particular, are expanding the borders of traditional classrooms to potentially improve attention and learning.
culture & society
Scientific methodology can help to disentangle potential sources contributing to colour-related habits (e.g. wearing pink for girls) and associations (e.g. yellow with joy). These are shaped by biological factors but also to a large extent by individual and cultural experience. Based on extensive research and understanding of inter-individual and cultural differences in colour experiences, we can advise organisations wishing to better understand and optimise, for example, multi-cultural teams, or international product development. To provide an example, some colours might represent a positive concept in one culture, but a negative concept in another culture. Successful global marketing strategies, thus, need to be aware of and take into account culturally different colour customs.
Our Partners
Current
The Royal Horticultural Society, UK (2019-ongoing)
Past
AkzoNobel, UK and the Netherlands (2013-2015)
“In visual perception a colour is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is. This fact makes colour the most relative medium in art.”
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