Blue, associated with a clear sky or an open ocean, is the colour of calmness, and peace. It encourages us to think outside the box
Scientists who monitored the performance of more than 600 people as they underwent a battery of psychological tests found that red stimulated a person's attentiveness, whereas blue fertilised the imagination and inspired a more risk-taking attitude.
The researchers found that the study's subjects were unaware of the effect that colour had on their thinking, and suggest that the findings could be used for anything from designing the interior decoration of a school or university to the marketing of products and services.
Previous research produced contradictory conclusions in terms of the benefit or otherwise of exposing people to a background colour of red or blue while asking them to carry out a thinking task, said Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who carried out the study published in the journal Science.
"Prior research found conflicting results in terms of which colour - red or blue - leads to better performance," said Dr Zhu. "We show that if the task requires detailed attention, red will help more, but if the task is creative in nature, blue will be more beneficial. It really depends on the nature of the task."
Humans, like other primates, have trichromatic, three-colour vision, which evolutionists believe came about as a result of the need to distinguish easily between ripe and unripened fruit in a forest canopy. But the influence of red and blue on our modern way of thinking is probably a learnt behaviour rather than being innate, Dr Zhu said.
"We think [the difference between red and blue] is due to learnt associations," she said. "That's why I expect that if in another culture red is often associated with other meanings, we might not be able to replicate the results of this study.
"Thanks to stop signs, emergency vehicles and teacher's red pens, we associate red with danger, mistakes and caution. The avoidance motivation, or heightened state, that red activates makes us vigilant and so helps us to perform tasks where careful attention is required to produce a right or wrong answer."
Blue, meanwhile, is associated with a clear sky or an open ocean, and as such it is the colour that encourages us to think "outside the box" and to be creative. It is also the colour of calmness and tranquillity.
Dr Zhu explained: "Through associations with the sky, the ocean and water, most people associate blue with openness, peace and tranquillity. The benign cues make people feel safe about being creative and exploratory - not surprisingly, it is people's favourite colour." Six different psychological tests were carried out on the volunteers. One involved a memory task; recalling 36 words within a two-minute period. People did better when the background colour on the computer screen was red, whereas blue led to more false recalls.
Another challenged people to think of as many different uses for a pile of bricks as they could. Red or blue did not affect the total number of ideas, but blue did result in a significantly higher score in terms of the creative content of the idea.
Several of the tests investigated how colour affects a person's attitude to an advertising campaign. A red background stimulated a person's attention to the detailed technological capabilities of a camera, whereas a blue background was more likely to stimulate ideas about what the camera could be used for. Similarly, an advertisement for a fictional brand of toothpaste was found to have a greater impact for a negative message, such as "cavity prevention", if red was used as the background colour. But blue had a greater impact for a positive message, such as "tooth whitening".
Dr Zhu said that the background colour used in advertisements could have subtly different effects on a potential consumer. When the background colour was red, people formed more favourable evaluations of products when its ad featured specific product details as opposed to evocative, creative messaging.
However, blue produced the opposite effect, Dr Zhu said: "If we are setting up educational facilities that intend to enhance performance on detail-oriented tasks, such as memory and proofreading, or if we want people to remember important side-effects of a medications, then the colour red should be more appropriate.
"However, if we want to set up a brain-storming session for a new product-development process, or coming up with innovative ideas, then go with blue."
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