THE COGNITIVE ECOLOGY OF COLOUR METAPHORS: FROM PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE TO ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATION IN ENGLISH

Abstract

Colour metaphors in English (e.g., “seeing red,” “feeling blue”) are widespread and may reflect how bodily colour responses—such as arousal and attention shifts—become abstract meanings within a cognitive ecology shaped by embodied and environmental interaction. This study synthesizes physiological, psychological, and linguistic evidence through a systematic literature review of empirical work on colour–emotion links, metaphor interpretation, grounded cognition, and contextual moderators. Overall, the findings suggest relatively strong support for red-related metaphors (consistent with attentional and arousal biases), while “blue sadness” appears less robust and more context-dependent, with greater variability as colour meanings extend into abstract domains. These results frame colour metaphors as an ecological bridge between body and mind, with implications for psychological assessment and cross-cultural communication, and point to future work using real-time linguistic data.