Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances

Existing research reports inconsistent findings with regard to the effect of color on cognitive task performances. Some research suggests that blue or green leads to better performances than red; other studies record the opposite. Current work reconciles this discrepancy. We demonstrate that red (ve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 323; no. 5918; pp. 1226 - 1229
Main Authors Mehta, Ravi, (Juliet) Zhu, Rui
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 27.02.2009
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Anagrams
avoidance behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Bricks
Cognition
Cognition. Intelligence
Cognitive ability
Color
Colors
consciousness
Creativity
Experimental psychology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Mental Processes
Mental Recall
Motivation
Motivation research
Peacefulness
Performance enhancing substances
Product design
Propriety
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning. Problem solving
Task Performance and Analysis
Young Adult
Human
Motivation
Color
Cognition
Psychological effect
Experimental study
Performance
Creativity
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Summary:Existing research reports inconsistent findings with regard to the effect of color on cognitive task performances. Some research suggests that blue or green leads to better performances than red; other studies record the opposite. Current work reconciles this discrepancy. We demonstrate that red (versus blue) color induces primarily an avoidance (versus approach) motivation (study 1, n = 69) and that red enhances performance on a detail-oriented task, whereas blue enhances performance on a creative task (studies 2 and 3, n = 208 and 118). Further, we replicate these results in the domains of product design (study 4, n = 42) and persuasive message evaluation (study 5, n = 161) and show that these effects occur outside of individuals' consciousness (study 6, n = 68). We also provide process evidence suggesting that the activation of alternative motivations mediates the effect of color on cognitive task performances.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1169144