Warm, cool, light, dark, or afterimage

Conceptual color metaphor/metonym (CCMM) and our semantic frame of color are motivated through the embodied co-occurrence of color experience as light (RGBu) and as pigment/substance (RYBu [CYM where C= cyan M = Magenta]). Conceptual perceptive mapping establishes a cognitive mechanism to accommodate the positive and negative connotations in relation to both conventional and non-conventional color items. Fifty participants assessed 143 items in four color tasks, involving the eleven universal basic color concepts. The items were divided between the visual and the linguistic aspects: color metaphor and color metonym. This paper investigates the results in the strictly hue dimension in comparison with the conceptualization of temperature warm/cool and brightness light/dark. Furthermore, the presence of a linguistic and a visual ‘afterimage’ effect is analyzed. CCMM theory helps explain how individuals conceptualize and categorize opponent polysemic association functions in the parallel signal/symbol cognitive processing of color and color language.