Research                

The information below illustrates some of the reasoning behind the power of colour from many different sources:

• Effective use of Colour increases attention span by up to 82%.[3]

• Colour can boost memory by 78%[3]

• Colour increases the understanding of something by 70% and recall by 60% [2]

• Colour visuals increase willingness to read by up to 80 5 [1]

• Using Colour can increase motivation and participation by up to 80 % [1]

Short-term memory is temporary recollection of information. When reading a sentence, or a passage, you have to keep in mind the beginning of the sentence to make sense of the rest. Information is passed from sensory memory to short-term memory through attention, meaning information that is interesting is what’s going to be remembered.

The Von Restorff effect was identified by Hedwig von Restorff in 1933. She conducted a set of memory experiments around isolated and distinctive items, concluding that an isolated item, in a list of otherwise similar items, would be better remembered than an item in the same relative position in a list where all items were similar. Because Colour increases creativity and highlights important points and stands out, they can help add elements of SURPRISE to notes.  Von-Restorff said that one Colour is monotonous and boring and so the brain just switches off.

Highlighters have been used for the past couple decades for use of a study aid. Past experiments have shown that highlighters benefit when studying for a test versus not using any kind of highlighting. The Colour yellow stimulates the brain, which why yellow is such a popular highlighter Colour.

“Colour communications can improve comprehension by 75 % over black-and-white communications. Readership of Colour documents can be 40 percent higher. Training materials printed in Colour can accelerate learning from a rate of 55 % to a rate of 75 %” – Don Jones, Author

REFERENCES

Home Tips  Research  Links  Win