INTRODUCTION - Colours and Memory

INTRODUCTION

Enhancing Memory Using Colours Among Malays in MalaysiaDIANA BINTI JOHANA145449MILA JULIAWATIA146652WAN NORIZA BT WAN DERASIKA145446YEE SIEW KUANA146723ZATA HANUNI BT AZHARIA145452INTRODUCTION1976; Farley & Grant conducted an experiment on the influence of colour on attention and found that coloured multimedia resulted in better attention and better memory performance.Colour helps in memorizing certain information by increasing our attentional level. The role played by colour in enhancing our attentional level is undisputable (Pan Y., 2012)Another study by McConnohie found that the result of his experiment on colours enhances memory performance contradicts with previous studies findings.Due to these findings, we are interested to identify a clearer relationship between colours and memory performance.OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONMemory refers to the mental process of encoding, retaining and retrieving environmental information (Radvansky, 2006).Colour is believed to be the most important visual experience to human being (Adams, Osgood, 1973).It (colour) functions as a powerful information channel to the human cognitive system and has been found to play a significant role in enhancing memory performance (Wichmann et al., 2002).Emotions are a result of an individuals judgement about the world and appraisal of interaction with and in the world (Desmet, 2002; Frijda, 1993; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987)Emotions can be described along two dimensions that affect performance, valence (positive-negative) and activation (activating-deactivating) (Pekrun, 1992; Russell, 2003).

Effects of Color on Memory Encoding and Retrieval in the Classroom Jennifer V. Martinez, Crystal D. Oberle, and Jon G. Thompson Jr. Texas State University, 6 January 2010 American Journal Of Psychological Research

PROCONSIdentical background or foreground colors at presentation and test times will lead to enhaced recognition (Dulsky, 1935; Murnane & Phelps, 1993, 1994, 1999; Weiss & Margolius , 1954; Wichmann et all., 2002)Jacobs and Blandino (1992) found that students taking an exam on red or yellow paper out performed students taking the exam on white, blue, or green paper.Sinclair, Soldat, and Mark (1998) found that students taking an exam on blue paper outperformed students taking the exam on red paperSkinner (2006) found that students taking exam on white, blue, or green paper outperformed students taking exam on red or yellow paper.

Elliot and Maier (2007) explore the role of the use of red on intellectual performance and found that the color red negatively impacts performance in achievments contextsthe color red in a given context will invoke avoidance behavior and aggression (Jennifer et all., 2010).the color of the paper does not serve as a sufficiently strong retrieval cue (Jennifer et all., 2010)No effect of the color of paper on which the exam was printed (Jennifer et all., 2010)No general effect of colored paper on exam performance (Michael & Jones, 1955)

The Effects of Color on Memory Lynnay Huchendorf Faculty Sponsor: Melanie Cary, Department of PsychologyJournal of Undergraduate Research X (2007)PROCONSFaber Birren (1950) warm colors, (red & yellow), increase arousal more than cool colors, such as green and blue.Greene et al. (1983) yellow & orange (warm colors) elicited more arousal than other colors like brown and gray.Otani et al. (2007) participants appropriately rated the arousing story as more arousing. *recognition for the more arousing story was significantly higher than recognition for the neutral story. Spence et al. (2006)color increased recognition of natural scenes by approximately 5%.McConnohie (1999) slideshow with the white background resulted in higher retention rates both immediately, & 1 hour after viewing the slideshow. This would be an expected result since blue and green are both cool colors and therefore wont have as much of an arousing effect as white would.Huchendorf (2007) found that there was no significant difference for percent recall among color categories.Wolters and Goudsmit (2005) study, they were testing recall based on very arousing and traumatic events. Exposure to warm colors will not have such an impact and therefore might not cause enough arousal to trigger the corresponding increase in memory.

Emotional design in multimedia learning: Effects of shape and color on affect and learning Jan L. Plass, Stef Heidig, Elizabeth O. Hayward, Bruce D. Homer, Enjoon Um 28 February 2013PROSCONSResults of learning outcome measures in Study 2 replicated ndings from Um et al. (2011) and Study 1 in showing that emotional design that employed both round shape and warm color resulted in increased comprehension, as did color and shape individually The main effects for each element alone on comprehension were signicant, although we could only conrm for shape, but not for color, that this design factor was able to induce positive emotions that had a statistically signicant effect on enhancing comprehensionShape was most effective in facilitating transfer learning when used with neutral colors, but did not facilitate transfer when combined with color. Shape and color were not found to uniquely contribute to cognitive load or measures of satisfaction, motivation, or perception of learning Research QuestionsDoes colour effects memory?Does word or number effects memory?Does mood effects memory?

ObjectiveTo examine how colours effect memory.To determine whether words or numbers effect memory.To examine how mood effects memory.

HYPOTHESISRed colour helps in enhancing memory.Words are easier to be memorize compared to numbersNegative emotion helps in enhancing memory.Research DesignSubject: 36 AdolescenceTarget: 18 Female and 18 Male (Malay)Apparatus: Colour paper with syllable nouns printed on, Colour paper with arithmetic task, stopwatch, Answer sheet, Consent Form, Envelope

ProcedureInformed consent is distributed to all participants and participants are asked to provide standard demographic information. Participants were randomly assigned into one of three colour conditions: red, green and the control condition.Each participant received an envelope. The first page of the packet had a list of twenty common syllable nouns, such as chair and button. Participants were instructed that they would be given two minute to study these words. They were then asked to turn the page and work on a 3-digit multiplication task for three minute. Then, the next sheet was a blank page on which they were asked to recall as many words as they could. They were given two minutes to do this. Participants are then informed that they did badly and were asked to repeat the test. Participants are debriefed after the test is over.Table 1: ANNOVA for Colours and MoodSum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig.No. Words PositiveBetween Groups11.16725.583.470.629Within Groups391.8333311.874Total403.00035No. Words NegativeBetween Groups45.389222.694.882.424Within Groups849.5833325.745Total894.97235Arithmetic PositiveBetween Groups18.16729.083.655.526Within Groups457.8333313.874Total476.00035Arithmetic NegativeBetween Groups77.056238.5282.5000.098Within Groups508.5833315.412Total585.63935Table 2: Mean for Colour, Words and Arithmetic in different MoodColourNo. Words PositiveNo. Words NegativeArithmetic PositiveArithmetic NegativeRedMeanNStd. Deviation10.33124.09710.92124.8896.25122.7028.25124.615GreenMeanNStd. Deviation11.25123.4159.00125.0996.08123.08810.67122.964NeutralMeanNStd. Deviation9.92122.67811.67125.2287.67124.9797.17124.019TotalMeanNStd. Deviation10.50363.39310.53365.0576.67363.6888.69364.091Table 3: Pearson Moment Correlation for No. Words and Arithmetic in different MoodNo. Words NegativeArithmetic NegativeNo. Words PositivePearson Correlation0.629**0.139Sig. (2-tailed)0.0000.419N3636Arithmetic PositivePearson Correlation0.2460.813**Sig. (2-tailed)0.1490.000N3636Table 4: Univariate Analysis of Variance for Gender, Colour and MoodSourceType III Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig.Corrected Model85.653a517.1311.6190.185Intercept3786.65513786.655357.9660.000Gender0.84410.8440.0800.780Colour Positive23.899211.9501.1300.337Gender*Colour Positive72.548236.2743.4290.046Error317.3473010.578Total4372.00036Corrected Total403.00035Corrected Model159.540 b531.9081.3020.290Intercept3367.85913367.859137.3830.000Gender64.072164.0722.6140.116Colour Negative30.653215.3260.6250.542Gender*Colour Negative50.030225.0151.0200.373Error735.4323024.514Total4885.00036Corrected Total894.97235DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONThe purpose of this research is to identify a clearer relationship between colours and memory performance.We found that there is no significant difference between colours and memory performance. Our result was found to be consistent with the findings of Martinez et al. (2010) which showed there is no significant difference between colour and memory retrieval based on the experiment conducted.In Wolters and Goudsmit (2005) study, they were testing recall based on very arousing and traumatic events. Exposure to warm colours will not have such an impact and therefore might not cause enough arousal to trigger the corresponding increase in memory.

However, our result contradicts with the findings of Jacobs and Blandino (1992) which found that students taking an exam on red paper out performed students taking the exam on white, blue, or green paper.It is presumed that the neural areas that are activated during encoding are activated during retrieval and in turn, will aid ease of access of information stored in memory. However, in this particular situation, the colour of the paper does not serve as a sufficiently strong retrieval cue. Colour still remains an integral part of memory representation, but because colour and words are processed in different areas of the cortex, the use of colour as a retrieval cue likely requires focal attention (Allington, 1974; Hanna & Remington, 1996; Prestera et al., 2005). Elliot and Maier (2007) explored the role of the use of red on intellectual performance and found that the colour red negatively impacts performance in achievement contexts, perhaps because colours have specific meanings that have learned associations. The second finding suggest that words are easier to be memorised compared to numbers. This finding is inconsistent with the findings of Campbell (1994) which suggests that greater experience performing arithmetic operation on digits than on words may give digits a stronger capacity to directly number-fact representation.This may due to words give semantic (meaning) to be processed by humans cognitive structure and it is easier to be memorised compared to numbers.We also found that negative emotion significantly enhances memory performance. There are variety of reasons related to this tendency the initial recall of negative feelings may interfere with the processing required to recall in more detail (Guenther, 1988).From our findings, we can conclude that the study on colour and how it affects memory performance should be replicated and needs more detailed research as it is an interesting topic to be studied.For future research, we would suggest to use a larger number of samples for the experiment in order to detect whether there is a more significant value of difference between colours and memory performance.A detailed research should also be conducted on how emotions affect memory performance.

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