COLOUR AND MEMORY PERFORMANCE

Influence of colour on Memory Performance

Researching about SDAM in one of the articles I read that there are some colours which help to stimulate brain for memory. These colours are used in tests for people who have memory loss etc. I thought this could be an interesting topic to research and with the research I will decide what colour schemes I will have in my editorial designs. Colour is believed to be the most important visual experience to human beings. It functions as a powerful information channel to the human cognitive system and has been found to play a significant role in enhancing memory performance. Colour can be a very effective element in many areas such as learning and educational setting. In addition, colour is very important in marketing as a marketing study has found that colour can increase brand recognition by up to %80. An example for this is big fast food chains such as McDonalds, KFC. The colours used in the branding such as red and yellow is recognised by everyone around the world. It is a key element in influencing people’s attention. According to White, coloured advertisements can attract people to read the advertisement up to 42% more often than the non-coloured advertisement. This shows the importance of colour in making the information or message more attractive to the public.

In addition, colours have an important link with memory. Colours can enhance the memory performance because it increases the level of attention and give rise to an emotional arouse. So the higher the level of attention the more likely the information will be remembered. In other words, when you highlight key facts in an article you are more likely to remember the highlighted information then the non highlighted section. Farley and Grant came out with a theory that some colours have a greater effect on attention. They did an experiment with coloured and non coloured presentations on memory performance. The results showed that coloured presentation in better attention. Especially warm colours types such as yellow, red and orange have been found to have a greater effect on attention compared to cool type of colours such as brown and grey. In my editorial design, using warm colours such as yellow or orange in imagery will increase the level of attention and keep the reader interested. In addition, warm colours have been used in Alzheimer tests to help the memory performance.

Wichmann, Sharpe, and Gegenfurtner , found a clear advantage of colour on visual memory. In their experiment, they tested the colour recognition of the participants on the 50 millisecond to one second duration. The participants reported 5% to 10% better performance on colours over black-and-white condition. In their second experiment, the same images were used but with the exposure duration of one second and in six different image contrasts; 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 70%, and 100%. These contrasts were applied in colour and black-and-white images. According to the authors, the images in the low contrast level were hardly visible and seen.

In my editorial designs, the use of warm colours will increase the level of attention but also keep them interested in the article. As my initial idea I was planning on sticking to simple high contrast colours such as black and white. However, looking at other editorial designs as doing some research on importance of colour I have come to a conclusion that the use of bright colour in imagery or typography makes the design stand out for the readers. Most of the editorial designs I liked, the designer used a bold bright colour in some parts of the design. Considering the context and the tone of the article I think I will keep to black and white as key colour but I want to use bright orange in imagery or as back ground in some pages. This will help the pace as the reader will not lose interest and would visually make it more interesting.

The use of colour in the editorial designs above I think are really good. Especially the second design which the context is about energy, orange is known to be uplifting colour. They used is as the back ground colour for text with a bold sophisticated type. I think it creates a strong visual hierarchy. As the ‘Cool hands from the get-go’ is positioned right in centre which is were your eye is drawn to and contrast between light yellow and dark orange makes everything stand out. The design on the left is also really good, bright bold orange used as background for imagery is the main focus. It’s a large scale imagery positioned to fit the whole page. Looking at these two examples really gives me an idea on colour scheme and the how to create a strong visual hierarchy.