Avoidance Or Attraction: The Advantages Of Red Discrimination And It’s Reasons

Red is a special color signal for individuals from the perspective of physiology,evolution and environment,which can induce special red psychological effect.When individuals distinguish different colors,red shows distinct difference.Some studies claim that human beings are born with a special perception of red that differs between the sexes,while others have suggested that this "special" is the result of practice or environment,and that gender differences do not exist.At present,there is no unified conclusion about the existence of red discrimination advantage and the specific manifestation of red discrimination advantage.The Color in Context（CIC）theory claim that "color can influence cognition and behavior through the implicit association between specific context and color".Based on this theory,this study considers that the formation of red discrimination advantage is closely related to the background context of color signal.Therefore,college students are recruit as participants in this study.Through the color category of visual search task,study firstly tests whether there is an advantage in individual red discrimination between and within categories,and respectively verifies the existence of red discrimination advantage.Secondly,contextual cues are introduced into the study to investigate the influence of affiliation and competition context cues on red discrimination advantage in CIC theory.In the first study,the visual search paradigm was used to investigate the between-category discrimination advantage.Participants were required to search red,yellow,blue or green respectively among the four target colors presented at the same time.The results showed that red target was significantly faster than blue and green target,and there was no significant difference between red target and yellow target.There was no significant difference between male and female.In the second study,visual search paradigm was used to investigate the within-category discrimination advantage.Participants were required to search for the only target color with different CIE Lab value color from the 12 color blocks（the same color item）.Task types are divided into four groups: red,yellow,blue and green.The results showed that the correct rate and response time of red task were significantly better than that of blue and green task,but there was no significant difference between red task and yellow task.The correct rate of right visual field and response time were better than that of left visual field.Color and visual field factors were affected by color category step.Comparing male with female,male’s correct rate was significantly higher.The third studies,the effects of contextual factors on red discrimination were investigated by using the improved visual search paradigm.Based on the color block discrimination task within the two categories,the effects of "affiliation/attraction contexts " and "competition contexts " in CIC theory on red discrimination ability were studied by adding picture clues to present different situations.This study consists of two sub-experiments:Sub-experiment 1 explore the effect on red discrimination under sex cues（affiliation/attraction contexts）.The results indicated that the accuracy of red task was significantly higher than that of blue and green task,and red was faster than that of yellow,blue and green task.Comparing with the left visual field（LVF）,the correct rate of the right visual field（RVF）was significantly higher.Only in the red task,RVF was significantly faster than LVF.Male correct rate is higher than female;Female image cues increased the difference between male’s left and right visual field accuracy,and the response time of male’s right visual field became faster.Color and visual field were influenced by different color spatial distance.With the increase of color spatial distance,the advantage difference between red task and other color tasks and the difference between two visual fields disappeared.Sub-experiment 2 explore the effect on red discrimination under danger cues（competition contexts）.The results demonstrated that the red task’s accuracy and response time were significantly better than those of the blue and green tasks’,but was no significant difference than yellow task.The correct rate of RVF was significantly higher than that of the LVF.But RVF advantage was limited to the red task.Male correct rate was higher than female,female LVF correct rate decreased;Color and visual field were influenced by different color spatial distance.With the increase of color spatial distance,the advantage difference between red task and other color tasks and the difference between two visual fields disappeared.The study reached the following conclusions:1)The superiority of red discrimination exists between categories.Individuals were able to retrieve red faster and more accurately than blue and green when presented with multi-colored target stimuli.2)The superiority of red discrimination exists within category.Individuals were quicker and more accurate at identifying differences in red colors than in blue or green,and male were more accurate than female.3)Under a certain range of color spatial distance,red signals induced the red-sex effect in the affiliation/attraction context,which affected the red discrimination advantage,and more affected men.Male participants’ right visual field accuracy was improved and response time was shortened,indicating that male red discrimination under sex cues had the advantage of right visual field-left hemisphere lateralization.The left-hemisphere lateralization of males in affiliation/attraction contexts provides behavioral evidence for the mechanism of the redness effect,which is induced by the approach motivation.4)Under a certain range of color spatial distance,red signals induced the avoidance motivation in the competition context,which affected the red discrimination advantage,but there is a gender difference.The competition context made the male’s red discrimination more accurate,but not female.It had an adverse effect on women’s red discrimination.In conclusion,this study revealed that red discrimination advantages exist and are affected by context.The mechanism is that the corresponding red psychological effect induced by the contexts can affect the color perception from top to bottom,and then affect the red discrimination.The above conclusions verify CIC theory.