Alexis Fry
Dr. Larson
October 23rd, 2017
Does Color affect Memory? We correlate color with emotions in our everyday lives. We see red and think bad such as a grade on a test, we see yellow and think caution, blue could be interpreted as sad or calming, green is happy, black is neutral, and so on. While color can evoke an emotional response, can it affect memory? This is what I have decided to further research for my independent study. I hypothesize that when administered a list of items and given the task to remember as many items from that list as possible, an item written in a colored ink will indeed have a higher likelihood of being remembered than an item written in a neutral colored ink. This can occur due to multiple reasons. For example, …show more content…
They wanted to see if a color associated with a positive or negative emotional tether would enhance memory. They chose the color red as it is often used as a warning signal and hypothesized that it would enhance memory for negative information. They also picked the color green which represents security and hypothesized it would enhance memory for positive information. To determine the affect the colors had, the researchers measured how many words were remembered by the color they were written in and manipulated the color and emotional significance of the words. Participants were asked to study and recall 30 lists of words. Twenty-seven of the lists had 11 black-colored words and one red, one green, or one blue-colored word. The remaining three lists contained only black words to include an additional control condition. The colored words used were randomly drawn and differed in emotional variance. Nine of the colored words were negative, nine were positive, and nine were neutral. Furthermore, three words from each of the three emotional categories were presented in each of the three colors. The participants were given a list of words to study, then asked to recall as many words as they could. They were also asked to rate their emotional valence on a scale from very unpleasant to very pleasant. As for emotional results, negative words were rated unpleasant while positive words were rated pleasant. To determine the effects of emotion and color on memory, an analysis of variance with the factors color type and emotional valence was conducted. The results concluded several things. First, they concluded that red and green colored words were remembered better than blue colored words. Secondly, they concluded that negative and positive words were remembered better than neutral words. Lastly, they concluded that memory for negative
Dr. Larson
October 23rd, 2017
Does Color affect Memory? We correlate color with emotions in our everyday lives. We see red and think bad such as a grade on a test, we see yellow and think caution, blue could be interpreted as sad or calming, green is happy, black is neutral, and so on. While color can evoke an emotional response, can it affect memory? This is what I have decided to further research for my independent study. I hypothesize that when administered a list of items and given the task to remember as many items from that list as possible, an item written in a colored ink will indeed have a higher likelihood of being remembered than an item written in a neutral colored ink. This can occur due to multiple reasons. For example, …show more content…
They wanted to see if a color associated with a positive or negative emotional tether would enhance memory. They chose the color red as it is often used as a warning signal and hypothesized that it would enhance memory for negative information. They also picked the color green which represents security and hypothesized it would enhance memory for positive information. To determine the affect the colors had, the researchers measured how many words were remembered by the color they were written in and manipulated the color and emotional significance of the words. Participants were asked to study and recall 30 lists of words. Twenty-seven of the lists had 11 black-colored words and one red, one green, or one blue-colored word. The remaining three lists contained only black words to include an additional control condition. The colored words used were randomly drawn and differed in emotional variance. Nine of the colored words were negative, nine were positive, and nine were neutral. Furthermore, three words from each of the three emotional categories were presented in each of the three colors. The participants were given a list of words to study, then asked to recall as many words as they could. They were also asked to rate their emotional valence on a scale from very unpleasant to very pleasant. As for emotional results, negative words were rated unpleasant while positive words were rated pleasant. To determine the effects of emotion and color on memory, an analysis of variance with the factors color type and emotional valence was conducted. The results concluded several things. First, they concluded that red and green colored words were remembered better than blue colored words. Secondly, they concluded that negative and positive words were remembered better than neutral words. Lastly, they concluded that memory for negative