March 3, 2007
“Seeing Red” Impairs Test Performance…
No, really…seeing the color red has recently been shown to cause poorer test performance because of its association with errors and mistakes. Sound like a flimsy finding appearing in a cheesy journal? Not so. The study appears in the February issue of the prestigious Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Careful what you wear to your next exam.
Lead author Andrew J. Elliot and his colleagues next plan to study the effect of the color green on life satisfaction in what they hope to term the “Kermit the Frog Effect” (it’s not easy being green). Okay, I made that last part up….
The link that describes the study says that a “perception of the color red” impairs performance, and that could mean a lot of different things. Do you have a link to the actual article or can you post some info about the methods.
Here’s the reference:
Color and Psychological Functioning: The Effect of Red on Performance Attainment.
By Elliot, Andrew J.; Maier, Markus A.; Moller, Arlen C.; Friedman, Ron; Meinhardt, Jörg
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 2007 Feb Vol 136(1) 154-168