Further evidence for automatic encoding of colour by children and adults

537

British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2002), 20, 537–5442002 The British Psychological Society

Brief report

Further evidence for automatic encoding ofcolour by children and adults

Jonathan Ling1* and Mark Blades2

1Psychology Section, University of Teesside, UK2Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK

Previous investigations of recall for colour have only examined colour recall over shortdelays. In the present experiments, children aged 4, 7 and 9 years and adults interactedbriefly with objects in various colours under incidental conditions. Althoughparticipants were not asked to learn the colours of the objects, all age groupssuccessfully recalled colour even after a delay of one day. In Expt 1, recall was abovechance in all age groups, and in Expt 2, when preschoolers were given a non-verbalmemory aid to prompt colour recall, there were no developmental differences. Thesefindings support and extend previous research that has found evidence for automaticityin colour encoding.

Previous researchers have demonstrated that encoding some aspects of information canbe an automatic process. By automatic, we mean that accurate encoding is possiblewithout an individual making intentional effort to learn that information. Several criteriahave been used to define automaticity (see Hasher & Zacks, 1979), and these includetwo criteria that are relevant to the present experiments. If information is encodedwithout effort, recall should be both better than chance and also exhibit nodevelopmental differences.

Automaticity of encoding has been shown for information like spatial and temporalinformation (Hasher & Zacks, 1979). It is, however, only recently that researchers haveargued that colour encoding may also be an automatic process (e.g. Hatwell, 1995; Ling& Blades, 1996; Patel, Blades, & Andrade, 1999). This is a novel finding, but it is basedon a very small number of studies and needs confirmation. In particular, the absence ofdevelopmental differences in recall over such a large age range is so unusual that itrequires further research. The principal aim of the two experiments in this paper was toreplicate this research. If the results from previous studies were valid, we would also

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* Requests for reprints should be addressed to Jonathan Ling, Psychology Section, School of Social Sciences, University ofTeesside, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA, UK (e-mail: [email protected]).

expect to find the same high levels of colour recall and a lack of developmentaldifferences.

We also wanted to overcome a limitation of previous experiments. Althoughparticipants were not, of course, told to learn the colours of objects, colour was often ahighly salient aspect of the stimuli. Hatwell (1995) showed children two woodenblocks that were either red or green. Ling and Blades (1996) asked participants to recallthe colours of six items from a model layout that was otherwise painted a uniform grey,and Patel et al. (1999) asked children and adults to manipulate eight coloured objectswhich were the only items in the experiment. In these studies, participants may havepaid some explicit attention to the colour because there was little else to notice in thecourse of the experiments. Naveh-Benjamin (1987, 1988) argued that when an aspect ofa stimulus is very salient, some intentional processing might take place. If anyintentional processing took place in previous studies, this would weaken those studiesas pure measures of automatic encoding.

For this reason, in the present experiments, we included a much larger number ofitems than in previous studies. Some of these were target items with which theparticipants interacted (see below). Other items were distractors that were not used byparticipants but were present and visible throughout both experiments. We expectedthat having a large number of variously coloured items would reduce any tendency forparticipants to pay deliberate attention to the colour of the target objects. If recall forthe colour of the target objects was as good as in previous studies, this would providestrong evidence for automaticity in encoding of colour.

We have pointed out that incidental colour encoding may have implications forassessing the accuracy of children’s reports of colour in their eyewitness testimony(Ling & Blades, 1996). However, it is difficult to extrapolate from previous studies toreal-life testimony. In all the studies of incidental colour encoding, children’s recall wasassessed immediately or within a few minutes of viewing; such a short time span wouldbe unlikely in cases where children give testimony. We wanted to examine whethermemory for colours seen incidentally was retained for longer periods, and so in thepresent experiments, we asked children to recall colours a day after they had seenthem. If participants demonstrated good recall of colours after a day, this wouldstrengthen the evidence that colour is encoded incidentally.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

ParticipantsThere were four age groups of 20 participants with mean ages of 4 years 4 months (agerange = 4;0 to 4;10), 7 years 2 months (age range = 6;9 to 7;6), 9 years 1 month (agerange = 8;9 to 9;5), and 21 years 3 months (age range: 20;2 to 27;8). Each groupincluded 10 males and 10 females. These age groups were similar to those included inprevious studies.

MaterialsTwenty-four easily recognizable objects were used in the experiment. Each object was

538 Jonathan Ling and Mark Blades

one of six colours, black, white, red, blue, green or yellow (with four objects in eachcolour). These colours have been used in previous studies (e.g. Ling & Blades, 1996;Patel et al., 1999). Several weeks before the experiment, the 4-year-olds were shownthe six colours on a card and asked to name them. All could name the coloursappropriately.

Object colours were chosen on the basis of the results of a survey conducted with100 adults prior to the experiment. Colours chosen were rarely or less frequentlyassociated with that object; frequently associated colours (like white paper) wereavoided to prevent the possibility that participants who had not encoded the colourmight guess the correct colour at recall. However, none of the object-colourcombinations used were so unusual that they might have generated particularattention. Twelve of the objects (two in each colour) were ‘target’ objects and weremanipulated by the participants, and the other 12 were distractors.

ProcedureAll participants were tested individually on two consecutive days. On Day 1, all 24objects were placed on the floor in the room and were always equally visible. Theexperimenter told participants that he was investigating how people used their handsand wanted to time them carrying out various activities. He then pointed to the targetobjects and asked participants to perform specified activities with them. Participantstook the target objects from the array of objects on the floor to carry out each activity.

Participants manipulated each of the 12 target objects. The timing of each activitywas calculated to give approximately equal time to each target object. In Activity 1,they used a green crayon to write on a piece of yellow paper (1 min). In Activity 2, theydressed a child-sized shop mannequin with a white belt, a blue necklace, a black shirt, ayellow scarf, and a red coat (3 min). In Activity 3, participants threw a blue ball into ablack bucket several times (1 min). In Activity 4, they threaded green beads on to apiece of red wool (1 min) and in Activity 5, they made a square out of white plasticpieces (30 s). Each participant carried out the activities in a different random order.

The distractor objects were always present but were not used. They consisted of ablack cup, black bag, white book, white helmet, red telephone, red stapler, blue glove,blue toothbrush, green T-shirt, green paint brush, yellow box, and a yellow folder. OnDay 1, no reference was made to the colours of any of the objects, and participantswere not told that there would be a recall test the following day.

On Day 2, participants were given an unexpected recall test. They were first asked ageneral free recall question ‘Can you tell me what you did when you came hereyesterday?’ to help them focus on the events of the previous day. Participants were thenasked to name the colour of each object with the question, ‘What colour was the [X]?’We asked about all 24 objects. The 24 questions were randomly ordered for eachparticipant. At the end of the experiment, participants were asked if they had guessedthe real purpose of the experiment. None said that they had tried to remember colours.

Results and DiscussionParticipants were scored correct if they gave the appropriate answer to each of the 24colour questions. If they gave the wrong colour or said they did not know, they werescored as incorrect. Participants could score a maximum of 12 for the target objects and

539Automaticity of colour recall

12 for the distractor objects. Preliminary analysis indicated that there were no effectsfor gender. The mean proportions of correctly recalled target colours are shown inTable 1.

Participants’ scores were compared to chance expectations. Chance was calculated,as 1 in 6 (0.17) because six colours were used in the experiment.1 All age groupsrecalled more colours than would have been expected by chance for the target objects(Wilcoxon signed rank, p < .05).

Participants’ scores were analysed in a 4 (age: 4 years, 7 years, 9 years, adults) 6 2(type of object: target, distractor) analysis of variance. There was an effect for age(F(3,76) = 3.73, p < .05), because the 9-year-olds had better colour recall than the 4-year-olds (Tukey HSD, p < .05). There was no difference between the adults or the 7-year-olds and any of the other groups. Type of object also had an effect(F(1,76) = 722.55, p < .001), because the target objects were better recalled than thedistractors. There was an interaction between age and type of object (F(3,76) = 8.45,p < .01), because all age groups performed similarly with distractors (which were all atchance level), but the 4-year-olds had a poorer recall for the target objects.

In summary, Expt 1 showed that when participants carried out activities withobjects, colour recall fully met one of the criteria for automaticity. The colours of thetarget objects were recalled at levels above chance by all ages, and, although there wasan age difference for the target objects (between the 4- and 9-year-olds), there was nodifference between the two older groups of children and the adults. Therefore, theolder children and adults met both the criteria for automaticity that were beingexamined in Expt 1. A fuller discussion will follow Expt 2.

EXPERIMENT 2In Expt 1, we used red, blue, green, yellow, black and white; these we will refer to as‘focal’ colours. With the exception of Patel et al. (1999, Expt 2), all previousinvestigations of incidental colour encoding have also used such colours. Patel et al.examined incidental encoding for other (‘non-focal’) colours and found that such

Table 1. Mean proportion correct for recall of the colour of target and distracter items for each agegroup in Expt 1

Age group Overall mean

4 7 9 Adult

Target .59* (.19) .72* (.18) .79* (.15) .79* (.15) .72* (.17)Distracter .22 (.12) .20 (.12) .28 (.14) .15 (.13) .21 (.13)Overall mean .41* (.16) .46* (.15) .54* (.15) .47* (.14) .47* (.15)

* Significantly different from chance (Wilcoxon signed rank, p < .05).Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

1We have estimated chance by reference to the number of colours used in each experiment (i.e. 1 in 6 in Expt 1, and 1 in 12in Expt 2). This is how chance is usually calculated in such experiments. None the less, this is a conservative measure becauseparticipants could respond with the name of any colour (and a few did give colours not in the experiment). Even with thisconservative measure, correct recall for the target colours in both experiments was consistently above chance expectations forall age groups.


colours were also encoded incidentally. However, in Patel et al., participants’ recall wastested after only a few minutes, and there was no direct comparison of recall for focaland non-focal colours in the same experiment. Experiment 2 was a repetition of Expt 1using both focal and non-focal colours to find out whether we could replicate Patel etal.’s results after a delay of a day.

Method

ParticipantsExperiment 2 included 20 children aged 4 (mean age = 4 years 4 months; range = 4;0to 4;8); 19 children aged 7 (mean age = 7 years 1 month; range = 6;10 to 7;10); 17children aged 9 (mean age = 9 years 4 months; range = 8;11 to 9;11); and 20 adults(mean age = 23 years 2 months; range = 19;3 to 27;8). There were approximately equalnumbers of males and females in each age group.

MaterialsThe 24 objects used in Expt 1 were also used in Expt 2. Half of these were targetobjects, and half were distractors. Half of each type of object was in focal colours withthe other half in non-focal colours. The target objects with focal colours were a blackbucket, a white belt, a red coat, a blue necklace, green beads and a piece of yellowpaper. The six target objects with non-focal colours were a brown shirt, a grey scarf, apiece of orange wool, a pink ball, a purple crayon, and a square of plastic pieces paintedturquoise. The six distractors with focal colours were a black cup, a white helmet, a redstapler, a blue toothbrush, a green T-shirt and a yellow box. The six distractors withnon-focal colours were a brown bag, a grey telephone, an orange book, a pink folder, apurple glove, and a turquoise paintbrush. In case young children might have been at adisadvantage because they did not know the names of the non-focal colours, we createda colour card for the recall part of the experiment. Such cards are beneficial in helpingchildren identify previously seen colours (Ling & Blades, 2000). Equal-sized circles ofthe 12 colours were painted on the card.

Although turquoise was included as a non-focal colour, participants in all age groupsfailed to differentiate between turquoise and green on the colour card. Furthermore,after the experiment, when a group of 15 adults were shown the turquoise objects, 13of them labelled the objects as green. For these reasons, turquoise was excluded fromthe analysis.

ProcedureThe procedure was exactly the same as in Expt 1, with the exception that on Day 2,participants could answer verbally and/or indicate the colour on the colour chart.

ResultsThere were no gender effects. Mean proportions of correctly recalled target colours foreach age group are shown in Table 2. Scores were compared to chance expectations.


As there were 12 colours on the colour chart, chance was calculated as one in 12(0.08). All age groups recalled the colours of target objects better than chance(Wilcoxon signed rank, p < .01).

Participants’ scores were analysed in a 4 (age: 4 years, 7 years, 9 years, adult) 6 2(type of object: target; distractor) 6 2 (type of colour: focal, non-focal) analysis ofvariance. There was no effect for age (F(3,72) = 2.05, p > .05). There was an effect fortype of object (F(1,72) = 302.58, p < .001), because the colours of target objects wererecalled better than distractors. There was an effect of focality (F(1,72) = 75.57,p < .01), because focal colours were recalled better than non-focal colours. There wereno interactions between age and object type (F(3,72) = 2.79, p > .05), age and focality,F(3,72) = 1.55, p > .05, or object type and focality (F(3,72) = 0.14, p > .05). There wasan interaction between age, type of object and type of colour (F(3,72) = 4.12, p < .05).In general, colours of target objects were recalled better than colours of distractors,although adults recalled an equal proportion of focal and non-focal colours for targetobjects. Acomparison between Expt 1 and Expt 2 showed that there was no differencein recall of the focal items in each experiment. The mean for focal items (i.e. all items)in Expt 1 was 0.47, and the mean for focal items in Expt 2 was also 0.47.

GENERAL DISCUSSIONIn both Expts 1 and 2, children and adults recalled the colours of target objects betterthan chance. Although there was an age difference between the recall of the youngestgroup of children and the other age groups in Expt 1, when the preschoolers weregiven a colour card to use, these differences disappeared. Taken together, thesefindings provide clear evidence for the automatic encoding of colour (Hasher & Zacks,1979). Participants in both experiments recalled around 70% of the target colourscorrectly when they were focal colours. This proportion is the same as that found byPatel et al. (1999). Participants recalled about half the non-focal colours in Expt 2, andthis proportion is also the same as that of Patel et al. The results of the presentexperiments therefore replicate previous research and confirm the evidence forautomaticity of colour recall (e.g. Hatwell, 1995; Ling & Blades, 1996), at least with

Table 2. Mean proportion correct recall of focal and non-focal colours for target and distracters foreach age group in Expt 2

Age-group Overall mean

4 7 9 Adult

TargetsFocal .60* (.28) .68* (.28) .76* (.22) .68* (.15) .68* (.23)Non-focal .38* (.27) .58* (.27) .55* (.17) .68* (.29) .55* (.25)

DistractersFocal .26 (.16) .28 (.16) .23 (.16) .28 (.19) .26 (.17)Non-focal .10 (.12) .11 (.15) .15 (.14) .10 (.14) .12 (.14)

Overall mean .34 (.21) .41 (.22) .43 (.17) .44 (.19) .41 (.20)

* Significantly different from chance (Wilcoxon signed rank, p < .05).Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.


respect to focal colours. The present experiments also extend previous research,because we included a delay of a day before recall, and by comparison with previousstudies (in which recall was tested after a few minutes), there was no decline in recallover the longer period. These results imply that recall for colour information can beviewed as an area of recall where developmental differences are limited, particularlywhen verbal differences are controlled for.

In the present experiments, we included distractor items (for the reasons givenabove), and therefore we believe our procedure provided a strong measure ofincidental encoding. The colours of the target objects were recalled much better thanthe distractor items (which were generally recalled at chance levels). This is to beexpected because the participants manipulated only the target objects. Even whenrecall was poor and colours were unlikely to be recalled, we still observed an effect ofsalience on colour recall.

The results of Expts 1 and 2 have particular implications for assessing children’saccuracy when they give eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony involves recall ofincidentally encoded information from previously witnessed events. On the basis of thefindings of the present studies, if children include information about colour, we canassume that their testimony will be as accurate as adults’ testimony, at least after age 9.This does not mean that either children or adults will always recall colours withcomplete accuracy, but from the present experiments, we can start to describe theconditions under which automaticity of recall will occur. Indeed, the experimentsreported above did not measure item recall, so it is likely that the high levels of recallobserved herein are very conservative estimates of the accuracy of recall of colour forremembered items. As shown in Expt 2, participants’ recall of focal colours is betterthan their recall of non-focal colours, but both types of colours can be incidentallyencoded (although further research is needed to find out why focal colours are betterencoded than non-focal colours). If children have performed some action with anobject, even briefly, they are likely to recall the colour of that object up to a day later,particularly if the object is focally coloured. If they have not interacted with an object(as was the case with the distractor items), they are unlikely to recall colour accurately.Further research is needed to discover whether incidentally encoded colours can berecalled after longer delays.

AcknowledgementsThis research was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council grant to Jonathan Ling.We would like to thank all those who kindly volunteered to participate in the experiments, inparticular the staff and pupils of Mushroom Lane Nursery, Lydgate Lane and Hillsborough Primaryschools in Sheffield, UK.

ReferencesHasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of

Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 356–388.Hatwell, Y. (1995). Children’s encoding of location and object properties in vision and haptics:

Automatic or attentional processing? Current Research on Cognition, 14, 47–71.


Ling, J., & Blades, M. (1996). Incidental recall of colour information by children and adults.Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 141–150.

Ling, J., & Blades, M. (2000). The effect of a nonverbal aid on preschoolers’ recall of color.Journal of Genetic Psychology, 161, 314–324.

Naveh-Benjamin, M. (1987). Coding of spatial location information: An automatic process?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 13, 595–605.

Naveh-Benjamin, M. (1988). Recognition memory of spatial location information: Another failureto support automaticity. Memory and Cognition, 16, 437–455.

Patel, H., Blades, M., & Andrade, J. (1999). Children’s incidental recall of colour information.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 537–549.

Received 11 December 2000; revised version received 21 January 2002


Further evidence for automatic encoding of colour by children and adults

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