Draft 2:Smart Colors

Hypothesis:
A test that is on different colors of paper when given to different samples will
influence a personís brain activity. By using bright colors of paper on a different series
of tests the outcome of the test scores are going to be much higher then the scores that are
produced from dull paper. We are going to use the scores that are produced from the
white paper as our mean scores.

Introduction:
We are going to produce a student generated lab on the affects of color on the
amount of stimulated brain activity that is produced. We are going to do this by giving a
variety of tests to selected groups of students. We are testing the influences on memory,
observation, recall and attention. Our samples are going to be the students that are in
Calculus classes on main campus, the students that live in Peabody, Mary Lyon, McKee
Halls, along with the students in our Wcp131 Natural Systems class. We are going to put
a variety of tests on pieces of paper that are yellow, white and gray. Through this, we are
going to test the cognitive influences of these colors with humans. We will use white
paper to produce our average scores that would be varied from the bright and dull colored
papers. The calculus classes will take the same test but varied on different colored paper.
Each individual class will take a test that is produced on either white, yellow, or gray
paper. We will then produce an average of scores pertaining to the color of paper. Along
with the Calculus classes taking these tests, we will survey our fellow students on
western with small individual tests done through the dorms. When researching some
background information on the web (www.java.net/color.com/optics.html) we see that
the color yellow temporarily jolts you and wakes your brain. This website also informed
us that yellow has a higher affective value for men than it does for women.

Materials and Methods:
Our materials are different papers in the colors of white, gray and yellow. The
way we are going to test this is by a number of surveys among our fellow students.
MEMORY
One test is going to be a line of no more than ten numbers on each piece of
colored paper. We will assign different group members different halls on western
campus and go around from dorm to dorm. We will record each studentís name so that
we know we already surveyed them so that we have the opportunity to come back to the
dorms and try to survey the students that we missed. Then we will test each person. We
will give him or her the opportunity to view a random color (yellow, white or gray) paper
for seven seconds and then ask them to recite the line of numbers. Based on their
accuracy and memory, we will then evaluate which colored paper produces the best
results overall, and record the data on our ìMemory Table.î

OBSERVATION
Splitting our group up again and assigning them to different dorms, we will
perform the second test. The second test is to write a short paragraph consisting of a four
to five sentences of text with words beginning in ìfî and then words ending in ìfî and
then words with the letter ìfî in the middle of them. We will then give the student a
minute to look at the paragraph on a random color of paper and count the number of ìfîs
in the paragraph. The student will recite how many ìfîs he or she observes in the
paragraph. Based on how close he or she is to the actual number of ìfís on the paper, we
will determine which color paper produced the best results. This test will be given to
each person on a random color of paper and then the results will be recorded on our data
sheet. This survey will test cognitive observation of the number of ìfîs by the colors of
the paper. Our data will be recorded on our ìObservation Tableî
RECALL
The third test is to distribute to a Calculus professor the three different colored
pieces of paper for weekly quizzes. The professor will have at least three classes. The
first week we will distribute color 1 to class 1, color 2 to class 2 and color 3 to class 3.
The next week we will distribute color 2 to class 1, color 3 to class 2 and color 1 to class
3. The third week we will distribute color 3 to class 1, color 1 to class 2 and color 2 to
class 3. We will then ask the professor to contact us and give us an anonymous list of
grades of each class and what color paper they used that week (white, yellow, gray). We
will evaluate these scores and record the data. After the end of the three week period, we
will average which color paper produced the best scores of that test that week. These
results will be recorded on the ìRecall Table.î

ATTENTION
The last test that we plan to do is to give little quizzes to our fellow students.
Once again, we will spit up our group and assign each member a different dorm to
survey. The test we plan to do will consist of five easy questions to answer. These
questions will be common sense, or information we learned early in our education. The
catch to this quiz is that the questions will be trick questions. Although, to the student
they may appear to be extremely easy, we will include double negatives in each question
so that if the person is not paying attention, then they could easily answer the questions
wrong. We will randomly distribute the tests on random colors and then record the
results and determine which color paper helps the testee pay attention the most. The data
and results will be recorded on our table named ìAttention Table.î

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Here is a list of responses that have been posted to this Study...

• Draft 3:Smart Colors (10/24/99) [ Contributor: Marlo Dowell, Shawn Stickle, Beth Campbell, Laurel Batcheller-Section: Myers ]
• Your topic includes all of us (10/14/99) [ Contributor: Emily Janssens and Katie Leith-Section: Myers ]

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