The purpose of this study is to elucidate the relationship between colors and clinical
symptoms such as depression and anxiety through Diagnostic Drawing Series, which was
developed by Cohen, Lesowitz, Singer and Reyner.
A total of 255 normal participants, aged 20 through 49, participated in this study.
Diagnostic Drawing Series and Symptom-Checklist-90-R were administered to all the
participants and the results were analyzed according to color indexes. Color indexes included
Color Usage (Color Type, The Number of Used Color), Coloring-in (Blending), Color Fit
(Idiosyncratic Color), and The Meaning of Color (Each Color Usage).
Results indicated that limited color usage was correlated to depression, and idiosyncratic
use of color was found to be an unhealthy sign. People who did not use blending showed
high rate of psychological disturbances. People who used yellow, light green, dark green,
and light blue were psychologically healthy, while people with black, dark blue, dark brown,
and red were related to numerous clinical symptoms.
These results imply that color indexes indicate psychological states of subjects. The
originally developed three color indexes provided significant results. Also two color indexes
suggested by these authors yielded significant results. The Number of Used Color index
elicited more delicate results than those with Color Type Index. Each Color Usage index
dealt with a specific domain of color which the original DDS had not included.
Key Words : Diagnostic Drawing Series, Clinical symptoms, Color index, Blending,
Idiosyncratic color