The Effects of Exposure to Red and Blue Light on Physiological Indices and Time Estimation

Abstract

The effects of exposure to red, white, and blue lights on time estimation and physiological indices were examined. Sixty subjects were exposed to a total of four presentation series of red, white, and blue lights. There were two phases of the experiment: a verbal estimation phase in which subjects were required to count out loud the length of each color while measures of eyeblinks, skin conductance, pulse volume, heart rate, and EEG activity were obtained; and a production phase in which subjects were required to produce several intervals while measures of EEG were obtained. The data on each dependent measure were subjected to three-way repeated-measures ANOVAS. EEG data were digitized and analyzed with power spectral, peak frequency, percentage of alpha activity, and discriminant analyses. Results indicate that color did not exert consistent significant effects on any of the dependent measures and raise serious questions about the assumption that ‘warm’ colors are more arousing than ‘cool’ colors.