"There's a reason we don't see the world in black and white" -Celerie Kemble
Color psychology explores the effect of color on consumer impression of a design. A persons perception of color is influenced by their experiences, upbringings, and culture, which means one color doesn't provoke a hyper-specific emotion in everyone. However, in western societies, there are general feelings that are typically associated with various colors. Additionally, certain groups tend to have specific color preferences.
When designing, certain elements and formats are intuitively easier to understand than others. This is due to the mental models that have formed in the viewers mind about what is expected and understandable. Specifically in websites, there is always an "expected" format that has been formed through the use of many sites with the same general structure. Designers should always try to keep there sites in line with existing mental models so it is easily understandable.
Perception is influenced by our knowledge of regularities in the environment. Because of this, a whole object is more than the combination of its parts. This view of perceptual organization is known as Gestalt psychology. There are various principles commonly associated with gestalt theory: figure/ground, proximity, similarity, continuation, & closure. These principles allow people to see the world in a (generally) correct way.
“People Ignore design that ignores people”.
Frank Chimero
In order for us to access a memory a retrieval path in our brain must be activated. Are brains are structured so various different stimulis can work together to activate the correct memory path. This leads to the theory of dual processing that states that imagery paired with language improves memory of a subject because is creates more retrieval opportunities.