When color names are used metaphorically: The role of linguistic and chromatic information

Four experiments investigated the integration of chromatic with linguistic and conceptual information in the interpretation of narratives where color names were used metaphorically. The texts were visually presented with 5 shades of the color metaphorically used in the narratives. Participants were asked to choose the shade expressively most appropriate to the story content (Experiment 1) or to rank the appropriateness of each shade (Experiment 2). We then employed a completion task where participants were asked to complete the texts with the color name they felt more appropriate without any chromatic information provided to them (Experiment 3). In the final experiment, we reversed the direction of the mapping and asked participants to choose the narratives that fit best with a given color shade (Experiment 4). Overall, the results showed that participants indeed used chromatic information in their choices, as suggested by perceptually based theories.