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A new study reveals Feeling sad can impair our ability to accurately identify colors on the blue-yellow axis. The new research was published in the journal Psychological Science.
In the study, the researchers had 127 undergraduate participants watch an emotional film clip and then complete a visual judgment task. The participants were randomly assigned to watch an animated film clip intended to induce sadness or a standup comedy clip intended to induce amusement. After watching the video clip, the participants were then shown 48 consecutive, desaturated color patches and were asked to indicate whether each patch was red, yellow, green, or blue.
The results showed that participants who watched the sadness video clip were less accurate in identifying colors than participants who watched the amusing clip, but only for color patches that were on the blue-yellow axis. They showed no difference in accuracy for colors on the red-green axis.
"We did not predict this specific finding, although it might give us a clue to the reason for the effect in neurotransmitter functioning," said said study first author Christopher Thorstenson from University of Rochester in New York, US.
The researchers noted that previous work has specifically linked color perception on the blue-yellow axis with the neurotransmitter dopamine.
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