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Dr. Marcel Meyer PhD¹; Prof. Dr. Corey N. White PhD²; Dr. Nick Augustat³; Prof. Dr. Georg W. Alpers⁴; Prof. Dr. Kristina Adorjan¹; Dr. Matthias Grieder PD¹
¹ University of Bern, Translational Research Center; ² Missouri Western State University; ³Marburg University; ⁴ University of Mannheim
Objective:
Physical features relevant to emotions are preferentially processed. Crucially, this is amenable to changes induced via state, trait or context variables. Colours constitute such physical features and are directly linked with emotions (emotion-linked colour cues; e.g., blue denoting calmness or relaxation and red excitation or stimulation). Moreover, the colouremotion associations of an individual are likely to vary over time (i.e., state variability). Yet, state-induced changes in the perception of emotion-linked colour cues have received scant attention. Compassion meditation is an effective means of positively altering one’s affective state, increasing positive and decreasing negative affect. Here, we therefore used brief guided meditations to induce changes in state and to probe the effect of meditation on the perception of emotion-linked colour cues.
Methods:
Three groups completed either a compassion meditation (Ncom = 30), a positive comparison meditation (reappraisal; Nreap = 28) or a negative comparison meditation (rumination; Nrum = 29). To index the perception of emotion-linked colour cues, before and after each meditation we administered a colour flanker task with red and blue colour cues as both targets and distracters. As our main parameter of perceptual processing, we assessed individual differences in perceptual strength of the colour cues using the shrinking spotlight
model – representing the amount of visual input from each cue in the display (target and distracter).
Results:
Following compassion meditation perceptual strength was increased for blue colour cues (t(132) = -4.030, p = 0.0001), suggesting improved visual processing of calmer cues. Conversely, following rumination perceptual strength was enhanced for red colour cues
(t(132) = -3.174, p = 0.0019), suggesting a processing advantage for more stimulating or exciting cues.
Conclusion:
These findings provide preliminary evidence for meditation-induced changes in colour perception. They accord well with the idea of state-induced changes (a) in activation of colour-emotion associations and (b) in the perception of emotion-linked cues. They are also
in agreement with the observed positive regulatory effects of compassion interventions respectively the negative effects of rumination. Moreover, colour-emotion associations tend to be formed at early processing stages, residing largely outside of awareness or intentionality.
The compassion-based effects on colour perception may thus reflect precursory changes to alterations in mood.