Psychologists have documented that the way we see and process visual information is largely influenced by what color it is. In a research project conducted in Europe, subjects were tested on their ability to remember pictures they had seen previously.
The May issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition contains the results of a study done by a trio of psychologists which examines the link between color and memory in the brain.
In a series of five experiments, they tested subject on their memory with a variety of pictures by allowing them to study them first and then mixing in those pictures with others that were new to them.
Some of the pictures they were given to recognize were just the same as the ones they had studied previously-in natural colors-and it was these that people remembered best. Naturally colored pictures from the first set that were then shown to them in black and white or in off-colors were not remembered by the brain as having been seen previously, suggesting that color information was a vital piece of memory retention.
Through experimental variations, the researchers ruled out whether color's built-in appeal caused the advantage by grabbing participants' attention better than would black and white. Among other findings, people did not remember falsely colored natural scenes any better than scenes in black and white-suggesting that it wasn't any color that strengthened memory, but rather natural color.
Source: American Psychological Association
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