Tag Archives: heart rate

Does red make us more attractive?

culture, design, fashion, ,

A number of studies have concluded that wearing the colour red make us seem more attractive to other people. However, perhaps surprisingly, this is still an effect that is unclear. Although many studies have reported the effect, others have not found it.

Today I was reading a paper by Lehmann, Elliot and Calin-Jageman who conducted a meta-analysis of published work on this topic in 2018. They analysed a large number of studies to try to come to a definitive conclusion. Overall they found a small but statistically significant effect when men were rating women. The effect was much smaller for women rating men.

Interestingly, the authors could not agree on the conclusions and presented two concluding remarks in the paper. The first and third author concluded that the effect of red on attraction was small, potentially nonexistent. However, the second author concluded that there was a small but reliable effect for both men rating women and women rating men.

This reminds me a little of the work on the effect of colour on blood pressure and heart rate where, again, the literature show contrasting results. In this area I have concluded that there might be an effect but that, if there is, it is probably very small. Measuring very small effects can be difficult because of the problem of needing large sample sizes.

Does Red Make the Heart Beat Faster?

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We had a lot of fun with our third colour podcast. We started off talking about the colour vision of unicorns and my co-presenter Huw put forward a very entertaining suggestion of what their colour vision would be like if they existed. We then explored the effect of colour and light on health. The effect of colour on heart rate and blood pressure is still contentious which is extraordinary, I think after all of these years that the scientific community has been studying colour. We also spoke about the role of colour and light on sleep. Sleep is really really important. Watching this TED talk by Matthew Walker about sleep might be the most important thing that you watch this year.

colour lighting

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Very excited with the temporary installation of our new spectral lighting system at Leeds University. Whereas most coloured lights are based on RGB, we have a system that has a lot of spectral control (it works by having 11 different coloured LED primaries). We have several PhD students who are using these lights with their research. Nic and Yiting are looking at the effect of light and colour on alertness and also on impulsivity. Meanwhile, Soojin (pictured) is looking at the effect of colour on creativity (though in her study we won’t be using really saturated colours like those shown in the pictures). Hoping for some great publications on this soon. However, if you are interested in whether coloured lighting can affect heart rate and blood pressure take a look at our AIC publication (pdf) that we presented in Tokyo in 2015.

red rage in schools

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Staff at a primary school in Dundee want to change the colour of the uniform because they think the red colour could affect children’s behaviour. According to the Headmistress Gillian Knox:

‘Red is often used to energise body and mind, and some research indicates that it can increase heart and breathing rates. [This is] not the calm, relaxed learning state we hope to achieve. A recent study linked red to impaired performance on achievement tasks.’

Pupils currently wear a bright red jumper or cardigan with grey trousers or skirt. But teachers want there to be only ‘small amounts’ of red – such as in the school tie.

However, although statements such as this – that red raises heart rates – are all over the red and often cited as facts (as in ‘everybody knows’) in fact there is very little evidence that looking at red can affect heart rates. We ran a study at University of Leeds last year and found no statistically significant effect of the colour of light on subjects’ heart rates or on their blood pressure. A review of the literature reveals little evidence: there is a PhD thesis from California from about 1950 that nobody can get hold off and a study with mentally handicapped children in the 80s. That’s it. Light certainly affects us physiologically but it is far from fact that red raises blood pressure.