At any given second, you are being constantly bombarded by sensory stimulants in your surroundings. In most cases though, you’re not paying attention to the traffic noise on the main street outside, or to the ticking of the clock on the wall. Rather, you’re focusing your conscious attention on vital elements of your environment while the other sensory information blends into the background or is only brought to your unconscious attention.

Taste the rainbow

When you’re not selecting the right shade of white for your walls, or wondering if bright yellow compliments your skin tone, colours that surround you are usually not brought to your conscious attention. Interestingly, however, many studies have proved that colours can affect your perception and decision making. For instance, ever wonder why bread packaging in good stores often have a brown or golden tones? Apparently, these colours are used on purpose to promote the idea of home-baked and oven freshness.

Feeling blue

Other studies have shown that contextual colours have an impact on students’ perception on behaviour. Students surrounded by cool colours such as white, green and blue reported higher feelings of hope, curiosity and satisfaction. In contrast, dark colours such as black or grey lead to feelings of worry and fear (Baper et al., 2021).

Time to think

Colour can even affect our perception of time. Recent results have shown that people perceived the duration of a red screen longer than that of a blue screen (Shibasaki and Masataka, 2014). In a similar vein, a study of 150 participants found that people inside a pod bathed in red perceived the duration of a minute 11 seconds longer than those inside a pod bathed in blue (Lotto, 2011).

Interestingly, other studies have shown the changing the colour of food and drink and even the background colour can impact people’s expectations and their taste perception (Spence, 2018).

Colouring your thoughts

Colours are simply omnipresent, and while it is still no clear-cut how they influence our decisions and perceptions, the next time you find yourself reaching out for a specific product in a store or enjoying the taste of a certain food in a restaurant, try to bring your attention to the colours surrounding you. Who knows? They may be playing a much bigger part in your experience than you think.

For more on this speak with us, or have a look at our capabilities

Also, as co-founders and supporters of the London Behavioural Economics Network, join the Meetup group and Facebook group for more details and events

Behavioural science Colour perception