The Effects of Color on Learning and Apprehension

Heidi AtStathi! Experimental Psychology! 11/12/13

Background:
The psychological impact of color ranges from altering our perceptions to changing our emotions, but color is also said to have different effects on memory and learning. According to research, color is believed to greatly enhance humans learning experience both in classrooms and in daily life. This is due to our ability to respond and interpret visual stimuli, which is processed from our eyes and translated by the brain.This process effects our body functions in turn, influencing our mind and emotions.

It has been proposed that color can be utilized in such a way, so as to aid in memory formation and conceptual learning for young students. However, as a college student myself, personal experience has shown that color still supports stronger memory and greater apprehension of educational material. This concept can be tested in various ways, and should be, in hopes of understanding exactly what influence the color spectrum elicits in the human brain and how to utilize this response for favorable outcomes in school and in daily life. The following experiment is set up for this purpose.
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Background:

Hypothesis:
When academic material is presented with a variety of colors on paper, subjects participating will demonstrate that they retain and understand the material better than if the material presented was shown in common black and white text only. Alternative Hypothesis: Subjects will not demonstrate that they understand or have retained the material better when presented in various colors as opposed to plain black and white text.

Experimental Design:
The experiment will be administered as a within subjects design, where the same group of participants will be presented with 2 versions of the same text to read, directly followed by questions related to the text to complete. They will be graded on the precision and accuracy of their answers in both trials (Color text and questions/ Black and White text and questions): The experimental trial will feature the text printed in various colors (red, green, and blue randomly) on yellow paper. The control trial will feature plain black text on white paper. The participants will then have to take a short assessment to measure their apprehension of the material in both trials, where the 10 questions asked about the reading will slightly vary in articulation between the color and noncolor trial. Both versions of the questions will have the same level of ease/ difficulty but are differentiated in order to fairly assess performance in both trials.

I) Results are expected to demonstrate a higher over all score of correct answers in the color-text trial, as well as higher overall accuracy and precision in which the questions are answered.
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II) Furthermore, it may be of interest to determine whether reaction times in the Color-text trial for completing the reading and answering the questions are faster or slower than the reaction times in the black and white text trial, however this is not the primary variable of interest for this experiment. Here, the score of questions answered correctly and how precise the answers were will be used to assess the level of understanding and apprehension

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