Applying gestalt similarity to improve visual perception of interface color quantity: An EEG study

Color has considerable effects on physiological and psychological perception during human-machine interaction. However, previous studies either compared whole sets of color schemes or only looked at single colors. This paper quantitively explored the physio-psychological underpinnings of the perceptual overload problem brought on by excessive color quantity involving expanding variety of colors and chromatic areas. Further, we applied the Gestalt Similarity law to determine if color grouping could improve visual perception. Twenty-two participants viewed color stimuli with their brain activity, subjective emotional experience, and visual discomfort being measured, reflecting three aspects of visual perception. The time-frequency analysis on electroencephalographic (EEG) revealed that increasing color quantity caused a boosted activation of delta, theta, and gamma bands in the parietal and occipital lobes, consistent with higher subjective emotional arousal. Color Gestalt substantially decreased the intensity of visual cortex activity and emotional arousal while enhancing visual comfort. The present Similarity grouping method, in that colors are different in saturation and brightness but identical in hue, broadened the grouping criteria in previous Gestalt research that employed identical colors.