How Color Affects Memory

You’re walking through the grocery store when you suddenly forget what you needed to buy. You try so hard, trying to think of what it was, but you just can’t remember what you needed. Surely this has happened to you sometime in your life, but have you ever really wondered why you forget certain information? Well, there definitely is a reason for this and memory certainly comes into play. Understanding how the brain stores and forgets information and why color effects memory, is critical if one wants to have a basic understanding of memory.

Memory is defined as the “the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.” Within the memory there are 2 distinct parts, the short term memory and the long term memory. Short term memory is said to have a capacity of 7 items stored at once and the information gained in short term memory can be

Color has a huge impact on our memory everyday of our lives, but there are reasons why color affects our memory. “Color is a frequency that can connect neural pathways which allows learning to be faster and memory to go deeper and subject/movement becomes easier.” To go even deeper, different types of colors has different effects. First, black and white are colors which are proven to be harder to recall. Next, warmer colors, like red and yellow, are more stimulating, more memorable, more noticeable, and improve ability to recall facts. If you notice, objects like stop signs, which people want you see, are the color red. This sign needs to grab a drivers attention, so they know to stop. Last, cool colors, like blue and green, are less stimulating, more relaxing. Cool colors are overall less effective, they cause calming effects, and provoke creativity. As you can see, colors do have a major impact on our memories and you just might not