Neural Responses to the Human Color Preference for Assessment of eco-friendliness: A functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the brain activation patterns in response to the human color preference by using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A total of 31 healthy humans without color blindness were participated in this study. The brain activation was induced by viewing of eight different colors: black, gray, blue, green, earthy yellow, red, yellow and white. The questionnaires for color preference showed that green color was mostly favorite to the subjects, whereas the black color was mostly unfavorite. During the visual stimulation with favorite colors, the brain areas dominantly activated included the pons, supramarginal gyrus, paracentral lobule, midbrain and globus pallidus. During the stimulation with unfavorite colors, on the other hand, the predominantly activated brain areas included the body of the caudate nucleus, parahippocampal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, splenium of the corpus callosum, hippocampus, orbitofrontal gyrus, amygdala, thalamus and angular gyrus. The differential brain activation patterns associated with color preference are assumed to reflect the human emotional response and status being assessed.