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To see or not to see: Importance of color perception to color therapy
Author(s) -
Jonauskaite Domicele,
Tremea Irina,
Bürki Loyse,
Diouf Cécile N.,
Mohr Christine
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
color research and application
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.393
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1520-6378
pISSN - 0361-2317
DOI - 10.1002/col.22490
Subject(s) - anxiety , relaxation (psychology) , color vision , psychology , full color , session (web analytics) , clinical psychology , audiology , medicine , social psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , psychiatry , optics , physics , world wide web
Color therapy, healing through color, supposedly works through the physical exposure to color. In two studies, we assessed stress and anxiety reduction after color exposure using a commercially available relaxation‐through‐color routine. Participants either completed the routine by looking at the accompanying color disks or at a white patch. In study 1 (longitudinal), 60 participants completed the routine three times, each testing session separated by a week. In study 2 (cross‐sectional), 63 participants completed half of the trials once. In both studies, we recorded a decrease in stress and anxiety levels comparing before‐after scores. In study 1, we recorded incremental decreases with each week. Crucially, decreases were the same whether participants (a) physically saw colors or not, and (b) completed the full or shortened version. We conclude that other factors but physical exposure to color explain changes in affective states associated with this and probably other color therapy routines.