As people grow up, they learn from their immediate and social environments. Thus, individuals grow up relating certain meanings to specific issues learned from the immediate environment. For instance, people assume that ripe bananas are automatically yellow. This is inaccurate because some bananas are reddish in color when ripe. Thus, memory color explains why individuals automatically assume that ripe bananas are yellow. Memory color explains that people expect the color of ripe bananas to be yellow because that is what they have learned and memorized over the past. Thus, people will likely have a color fixation on color diagnostic objects. Therefore, people expect certain items to have a specific range of colors. Hence, the study aims to comprehend this behavior and ascertain whether memory color can be decoded from the activity of the visual cortex when color-diagnostic items are observed as grayscale images (Bannert & Bartels, 2013). Further, the study seeks to establish how the knowledge of typical colors affects the understanding of authentic colors of particular objects. Thus, the research tries to disengage the idea of memory code from the memory color effect. This will help determine how memory color can be interpreted from the visual cortex activity.
The study is premised on the assumption that the color-processing passageway of the visual system that signifies the chromatic sensory input has the exact neural representation (Bannert & Bartels, 2013). This allows the researchers to utilize human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and pattern classification to evaluate different hypotheses (Bannert & Bartels, 2013). Further, the survey involves a searchlight analysis (4-voxel radius) of the entire brain to ascertain the patterns of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response to actual color (Bannert & Bartels, 2013). Determining the responses to actual color will make it possible to explain memory color. Thus, current research seeks to establish different responses of the entire brain concerning color-processing and memory color.
Results from the study indicate that memory color substantially affects the perception of object color (Bannert & Bartels, 2013). This means that the colors an individual remembers seeing can affect the perception of object color because the individual may associate the colors with a specific object. For example, if an individual remembers seeing a blue object, the individual may perceive a blue object as the same color as the blue object previously seen. These results concur with other psychophysical studies suggesting that color appearance and comprehension of color-diagnostic objects conform to the standard colors. This means that it is evident among individuals affected by memory color.
As per the study results, it is evident that people’s memory color affects how individuals recognize objects and categorize colors. Further, understanding the impact of memory color will make it easy to comprehend how color-diagnostic objects remind people of typical colors. Also, this means that just mentioning color-diagnostic objects elicits visual cortex activity that directs the memory towards memory color. In addition, memory colors act as the starting point for color naming and significantly impact color categorization. This means that prior knowledge possessed by individuals about colors plays a critical role in the classification of colors. These results can be critical in future studies that intend to establish that memory color can be used to understand how people remember information. Specifically, it would be fascinating to explore how different colors affect memory recall. Does viewing the color red before a test, for instance, help with memory recall? Additionally, studies might examine whether specific colors make it easier for people to remember particular kinds of data (e.g., blue for numbers and green for words). Ultimately, this study might have ramifications for educational institutions and companies that sell their goods using color.
Reference
Bannert, M., & Bartels, A. (2013). Decoding the Yellow of a Gray Banana. Current Biology, 23(22), 2268-2272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.09.016
write