Color as an Environmental Processing Cue: External Affective Cues Can Directly Affect Processing Strategy Without Affecting Mood

Abstract

We argue that environmental cues provide affective information that directly influences processing strategy, with positively valenced (i.e., happy) cues leading to nonsystematic processing and negatively valenced (i.e., sad) cues leading to systematic processing. Two studies addressed this issue. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a set of problem solving tasks printed on either red, white, or blue paper and under the condition of either low or high motivation to process. The results showed that in the low motivation condition the blue and white paper participants outperformed the red paper participants, while in the high motivation condition there were no effects. Further, there were no differences in mood among the groups, although results from a pilot study indicated that the red paper was perceived as communicating happiness relative to the blue paper. These results suggest that an environmental cue, such as color, can directly affect processing strategy in low motivation participants. In Study 2, participants completed both simple and complex problem solving tasks on either red or blue paper. The results of Study 1 were conceptually replicated. For complex tasks, blue paper led to better performance than did red paper; however, no difference was apparent for simple tasks. In Study 3, participants completed a set of simple problems on either red, white, or blue paper and evaluated either their affective state or the affect conveyed by the paper. As expected, there were no effects on accuracy on these simple tasks or on affective state. However, the red paper was perceived as conveying more positive affect then either the white or blue paper. The results are discussed in the context of an extension of the cognitive tuning hypothesis to the area of environmental cues. Stop rule and restricted capacity explanations, as well as implications, are discussed.