Memory and Colour

People seem to remember many things by their colour – a red bus, their blue car, a friend’s house with a yellow door. An image in colour seems more vivid and easier to remember, but does colour actually change how people remember things?

Experiments show that colour seems to help people process and store images in their brains, and remember them as well.

Remembering colour may be important because through the development of human kind it has helped people to find food, such as ripe red fruit in green trees, remember what things are dangerous, such as poisonous berries or mushrooms, or things that sting, like wasps, as well as helping to learn their way around new places. Because colour helps memory, it allows people to recognise familiar things and faces, and to learn about new places and new things.

Use of Colour

Advertisers use colour in magazines and newspapers because people remember coloured advertisements for longer than black and white ones. Colours also help people remember brands – for example the red of the Coca-Cola brand.

Tried and Tested

Make up a set of cards with coloured pictures on them, and then a second set of cards with the same pictures, but in black and white. Let someone look at the coloured pictures for a minute, and then turn the cards over. Name the pictures one by one and ask the person to find the pictures. How long does it take to find them all? Try it again with black and white pictures – does it take a longer or shorter time? Try it again with a few people – do some people find it easier than others do? Are there any differences between males and females, or children and adults?

Make two lists of words, with the words in black on white paper on one list and in different colours on white paper on the other list. Let someone look at the words in black on white paper for a minute, and then take the list away. Ask them to remember as many words as they can. How many words can they remember? Try it again with the list of words in colour on white paper – can they remember more or fewer words? Try it again with a few people – do some people find it easier than others do? Are there any differences between males and females, or children and adults? Are there some colours that make it easier than others do?

Try this again, comparing words in black on white paper and words in colour on white paper – does the colour of the paper make any difference?

In an experiment where students were given lists of words in different coloured envelopes and asked to remember the words, the colour of the envelope did not seem to make any difference in the number of words they remembered. This may have been because they didn’t look at the colours for long enough, or that different colours might have had more effect.

Many students listen to music while they are studying, and say that it helps them learn. Many parents and teachers say that music is just distracting, and that students are better studying in silence. Who is right?

The Mozart Effect

In a study published in a scientific journal called Nature in 1993, some scientists asked three groups of students to listen to a piece of music by Mozart (sonata for two pianos in D major) or a relaxation tape for ten minutes, or just sit in silence for ten minutes. The students then did a ‘spatial reasoning’ test (a test about remembering shapes and imagining looking at objects from different directions), and the ones who had listened to the Mozart did better in the test. However, this effect only lasted for ten minutes. The researchers thought that the ‘Mozart effect’ happened because the brain uses the same pathways for listening to music and spatial reasoning.

Other groups of scientists have repeated the ‘Mozart effect’ experiment and have not managed to get the same results. This might mean that there was a problem in the original ‘Mozart effect’ experiment, or that the people who tried to repeat the experiment have done something differently, or have missed something out. Other experiments have shown that music does not have any effect on maths tests.

Verbal Memory

Taking part in musical activities and learning to play an instrument can improve verbal memory (the ability to remember words). The longer the training lasts, the better the improvement in the memory. So, there’s no excuse to give up the piano lessons!

Behaviour

Anecdotal evidence (things that people have seen, without carrying out scientific experiments) suggest that playing music can help learning in disruptive students or students with learning difficulties by making them calmer. In one experiment, Mozart’s orchestral music played in the background did seem to reduce the blood pressure, body temperature and pulse rate in a group students, and improve their co-ordination and behaviour.

Learning

Songs can help with learning by repeating words and putting them into patterns, rhythms and catchy tunes – for example, there are counting and spelling songs, and songs to help learn times tables. There are even songs to help students learn about advanced subjects like biochemistry, in ‘The Biochemist’s Song Book’!

Music may help learning by covering up other distracting sounds.

Testing It Out

Find a spatial reasoning test on the internet. Play Mozart to a group of people for ten minutes, play something from the charts to another group for ten minutes, and get a third group to sit in silence for ten minutes. Test each group straight away, and then again after an hour. Is there any difference between the groups immediately after listening, and is there the same difference after an hour?

Find a group of people who have are learning to play a musical instrument, and a group of people who have never played a musical instrument. Read the same list of words to people from each group, and see who remembers the most words.

The colour of food is important – if an apple or a strawberry is red, it’s likely to be ripe, sweet and good to eat, and if a piece of meat has a blue or green tinge, it’s likely to have gone off.

Colour and Appetite

Sometimes just seeing a delicious meal (or even the picture of a delicious meal) makes people hungry. Like the sense of smell (see ‘The Effect of Smell on Taste’), the sense of vision affects the sense of taste.

Colour and Taste

It’s not just appetite – how food looks, even just what colour it is, can change how someone thinks it tastes. A vanilla dessert that is coloured brown might seem to taste of chocolate, or coloured pink might seem to taste of strawberries.

Try It Out

Make three sponge cakes, and mix a different food colouring into each (red or orange, green and blue). Cut the cake into squares. Give people a square of each and ask them what each cake tastes of and which cake tastes best – are the answers different?Put the three colours of cake on a plate and offer it to another group of people. Which colour is taken first? Which colour is left to the end?

The colour taken first is likely to be red or orange. This is associated with ripe fruit – think of oranges, cherries, strawberries and apples, and so is expected to taste good. Because of this, some restaurants are decorated in reds and oranges, or use red tablecloths or tablemats.

The colour left until last is likely to be blue. In an experiment in the 1970s, people were given a meal of steak and chips that looked ordinary under special lighting. When the people saw the meal under normal lights, some felt ill because the steak was blue and the chips were green.

Not liking blue food is probably because few foods are naturally blue (other than foods like blueberries, aubergines and a few types of potatoes), and blue can be a warning that the food has gone bad. Because of this, blue can be used to suppress appetite – people trying to lose weight may find it easier to eat less if they eat off a blue plate.

Colour some clear lemonade with different food colourings and ask people what flavour it is. The answers are likely to have more to do with the colour than with the flavour.

Colour three glasses of clear lemonade with red colouring, making one pink, one light red and one dark red and ask which one is the sweetest. The answer is likely to be the one with the most intense colour.

In research published in 2007, people were given glasses of orange juice, with some coloured a deeper orange with food colouring. The orange juice that was a stronger colour was reported to taste different, even though there was no actual change in the flavour.

Food manufacturers can use colour to make foods seem to taste stronger, sweeter or better.

source:http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/effect-smell-taste.html