{"id":819,"date":"2014-12-21T11:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/?p=819"},"modified":"2025-05-30T13:35:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:35:21","slug":"study-off-yellow-paper-red-blue-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/study-off-yellow-paper-red-blue-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying off of yellow paper? Or red, blue, or white?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There appear to be few consistent empirical demonstrations of the idea that studying materials printed on yellow paper are easier to recall than those printed on white paper, however there <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> evidence that warm colours (like yellow, orange and red) elicit more arousal than cool colours (like brown, grey and green). For instance, <\/span>Greene et al. (1983 <\/span>Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society<\/span><\/i>)<\/span> found that subjects placed in environments coloured yellow, self-reported more subjective arousal than those placed in gray, blue, green, white, brown, pink, orange, or red environments. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo by engin akyurt<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson (1966 <\/span>Perceptual and Motor Skills<\/span><\/i>)<\/span> found that when subjects viewed a warmer colour, their objective, physiological arousal, which was measured by skin conductance and galvanic skin response, was also higher. See also <\/span>Jacobs and Hustmyer (1974 <\/span>Perceptual and Motor Skills<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, <\/span>Levy (1984 <\/span>American Journal of Art Therapy<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, and <\/span>O\u2019Connell et al. (1985<\/span> Perceptual and Motor Skills<\/span><\/i>)<\/span> for related findings using additional colours and measures (though generally favouring red more than yellow as far as arousal is concerned). Furthermore, others have shown that more arousing events are better remembered (<\/span>Wolters & Goudsmit, 2005 <\/span>Psychological Reports<\/span><\/i>; <\/span>Otani et al., 2007 <\/span>Journal of General Psychology<\/span><\/i>). <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, colour on its own does seem to promote memory, in that recognition is higher for coloured than grayscale images (<\/span>Spence et al., 2006 <\/span>Psychological Science<\/span><\/i>). (Thanks to the unpublished <\/span>Huchendorf, 2007 <\/span>UW-L Journal of Undergraduate Research<\/span><\/i> for these references.) All this is consistent with the closest evidence known to us for an academic benefit of yellow paper: <\/span>Jacobs and Blandino (1992 <\/span>Perceptual & Motor Skills<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, who found better exam performance among students given exams on red or yellow paper, rather than white, blue, or green paper (as cited in <\/span>Martinez et al., 2010 <\/span>American Journal of Psychological Research<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>. However, later studies also cited by Martinez et al. (2010) found better exam performance among students given exams on blue rather than red paper (<\/span>Sinclair et al., 1998 <\/span>Teaching of Psychology<\/span><\/i>) or on white, blue, or green paper rather than red or yellow paper (<\/span>Skinner, 2006 <\/span>Teaching of Psychology<\/span><\/i>). In addition, colours like red have been suggested to increase anxiety in a variety of contexts and thereby <\/span>negatively<\/span><\/i> affect achievement: <\/span>Elliot & Maier (2007 <\/span>Current Directions in Psychological Science<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, <\/span>Hagemann et al. (2008 <\/span>Psychological Science<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, and <\/span>Ilie et al. (2008 <\/span>Cyberpsychology & Behavior<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>. Not only are these results in conflict with each other, but they also do not speak to the effect of paper colour on <\/span>studying <\/span><\/i>rather than test performance.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There appear to be few consistent empirical demonstrations of the idea that studying materials printed on yellow paper are easier to recall than those printed on white paper, however there is evidence that warm colours (like yellow, orange and red) elicit more arousal than cool colours (like brown, grey and green). For instance, Greene et… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":1943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,8,7],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-memory","tag-reading","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nStudying off of yellow paper? 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