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Topic · Social Psychology

Color perception and design

Color perception and design is a research topic within Social Psychology. Science Explorer counts 38k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the intersection of color psychology, Kansei engineering, and product design, focusing on how color influences cognitive performance, emotional responses, and user satisfaction. It delves into topics such as color preferences, affective design, and the impact of color on consumer behavior and product appeal.

  • Color Psychology
  • Kansei Engineering
  • Product Design
  • Emotion
  • Affective Design
  • User Satisfaction
  • Consumer Preferences
  • Cognitive Performance
  • Color Harmony
  • Aesthetic Intelligence
Research works
38k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+25%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
41% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Color perception and design

Which countries lead Color perception and design research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.2k and 795 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 2.2k works
  2. 2 United States 795 works
  3. 3 Japan 570 works
  4. 4 India 336 works
  5. 5 Indonesia 330 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 280 works
  7. 7 South Korea 246 works
  8. 8 Germany 212 works
  9. 9 Türkiye 195 works
  10. 10 Malaysia 167 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 41.3%United States: 14.9%Japan: 10.7%India: 6.3%6 others listed: 26.8%41%largest
China2,203 · 41.3%United States795 · 14.9%Japan570 · 10.7%India336 · 6.3%6 others listed1,429 · 26.8%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Color perception and design research?

By volume in 2022-now, North Carolina State University publishes the most Color perception and design research, followed by East China University of Science and Technology and Nanjing Forestry University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 North Carolina State UniversityUnited States 84 works
  2. 2 East China University of Science and TechnologyChina 42 works
  3. 3 Nanjing Forestry UniversityChina 39 works
  4. 4 Universiti Teknologi MARAMalaysia 36 works
  5. 5 Southeast UniversityChina 34 works
  6. 6 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 32 works
  7. 7 Zhejiang UniversityChina 31 works
  8. 8 Tongji UniversityChina 28 works
  9. 9 Jiangnan UniversityChina 27 works
  10. 10 Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 27 works

Who are the leading researchers in Color perception and design?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Color perception and design include Daniel J. Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Li Fei-Fei.

  1. 1 Daniel J. Kahneman United States 395k citations
  2. 2 Amos Tversky United States 327k citations
  3. 3 Li Fei-Fei United States 225k citations
  4. 4 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  5. 5 Marko Sarstedt Germany 221k citations
  6. 6 Lei Jiang China 214k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Color perception and design?

The most cited paper in Color perception and design is "Principal component analysis" (Hervé Abdi, Lynne J. Williams, 2010), with 10,890 citations. Next come "A scaling method for priorities in hierarchical structures" (10,402) and "Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential" (9,653).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Principal component analysis Hervé Abdi, Lynne J. Williams · Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Statistics Jul 2010 10,890
2 A scaling method for priorities in hierarchical structures Thomas L. Saaty · Journal of Mathematical Psychology Jun 1977 10,402
3 Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential Margaret M. Bradley, Peter J. Lang · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry Mar 1994 9,653
4 DEAP: A Database for Emotion Analysis ;Using Physiological Signals Sander Koelstra, Christian Mühl, Mohammad Soleymani et al. · IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing Open access 17 Jun 2011 5,075
5 Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception David Navon · Cognitive Psychology Jul 1977 4,064
All 98 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Color perception and design research done?

The largest centres of Color perception and design research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China) and Nanjing (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Raleigh and Macao.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 268 works
  2. 2 TokyoJapan 208 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 206 works
  4. 4 NanjingChina 129 works
  5. 5 SeoulSouth Korea 125 works
  6. 6 WuhanChina 115 works
  7. 7 HangzhouChina 109 works
  8. 8 GuangzhouChina 104 works
  9. 9 RaleighUnited States 85 works
  10. 10 Xi'anChina 84 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. RaleighUS · 84.8 works19×
  2. MacaoCN · 39.7 works6.8×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Color perception and design than the world average.

See Color perception and design on the map

Where is the best place to study Color perception and design?

Among universities, judged by research, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Qingdao University of Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 22.9%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Qingdao University o…Eindhoven University…Hong Kong Polytechni…Nanjing Forestry Uni…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 64.322.9%5.0×27 +19.3%
2Qingdao University of TechnologyChina 62.838.4%11.1×11 +143.6%
3Eindhoven University of TechnologyNetherlands 58.425.0%6.8×15 +41.5%
4Nanjing Forestry UniversityChina 58.021.0%13.5×39 +675.0%
5University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 57.533.2%1.7×15 -43.2%
6City University of MacauChina 57.216.3%18.9×18 +567.2%
7Hanyang UniversitySouth Korea 56.819.4%8.4×24 +409.9%
8North Carolina State UniversityUnited States 54.90.5%24.2×84 +916.7%
9University College LondonUnited Kingdom 54.517.5%1.7×17 +47.6%
10Nanchang UniversityChina 52.234.8%3.5×17 +275.0%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Color perception and design, country by country

Is Color perception and design research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 25% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2024. The fastest-growing topics are Color perception and design.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Color perception and design as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.037% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Color perception and design0.031% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Color perception and design over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Color perception and design10.1% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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