The Effect of Colour on Processing and Perception of Emojis in a Valence Categorisation Task

Previous research has found that colour can affect the interpretation and identification of facial expressions of emotion. Emojis are increasingly being used to communicate similar cues of emotion meaning in online communication. A question that has yet to be addressed is whether colour influences emoji perception in a similar manner to colour in the context of human face processing. This study seeks to empirically investigate whether presenting colours (red, green, blue, and grey) in the background of emojis influences the extent that the emojis are perceived as positive or negative. Forty-three participants from an Australian university completed an emoji categorisation task with positive, negative, and neutral/ambiguous emojis presented on red, green, blue, grey, and blank backgrounds. Negative emojis were found to be categorised significantly faster when presented on a red background compared to green or blue background. In contrast, positive emojis presented on a green or blue background were categorised faster than negative emojis on a blue or green background. Furthermore, in the context of emojis with neutral and ambiguous emotion meaning, a red colour background was found to increase the perception of these neutral or ambiguous emojis as negative. The pattern of responses found for emojis suggests colour influences emoji processing and recognition similar to the previously established colour effects in human face expression processing.