[01:15.94] Today I'm going to talk about red.
[01:19.38] Red is a strong colour that stands out particularly well from background colours.
[01:24.74] It carries many powerful associations. It often infers danger and warning,and is used internationally as the colour for stop signs and traffic lights.
[01:38.83] In addition,red is the colour our face turns when we are angry when we 'see red', but also when we are feeling guilty, shy or embarrassed,in other words, when we blush.
[01:53.11] Red is also the colour most associated with love,for example,the red rose.
[01:59.52] Recently, however, a new branch of science called 'colour psychology' has found that wearing red clothing can have a considerable impact on our mood, perceptions and actions, as well as others' perceptions of us.
[02:13.96] Dressing in red can even change your physiology and balance of hormones and alter your performance in sporting contests.
[02:22.12] Given the powerful impact of the colour red on humans,it is perhaps a little surprising that many mammals, like dogs,are unable to differentiate between red and green.
[02:34.52] However,when early primates were striving to adapt to life in tropical rain forests,a new kind of cell evolved in their retina.
[02:43.99] This cell enabled them to identify red fruit in the green foliage easily.
[02:50.99] The ability to distinguish red objects soon led to new forms of social signalling.For many primates, red skin - caused by blood pumping near the surface of the skin -is an important sign of social dominance.
[03:07.69] With vivid markings on their face and bottom, mandrill monkeys are perhaps the most famous example.
[03:15.35] The strength of the red colour indicates the position that the monkey occupies in the strict social hierarchy of its group;in fitter and more dominant individuals, the red is much stronger.
[03:28.51] By recognising other monkeys' strength and fitness,lower-ranking and weaker monkeys are able to avoid coming into conflict with these much stronger rivals.
[03:40.65] In 2004,two psychologists at the University of Durham in the UK decided to investigate whether humans might react in a similar way to red.Russell Hill and Robert Barton decided to test how humans might respond to red clothing.
[03:57.94] Perhaps the sight of red clothes could carry associations of aggression, seen in the red faces of angry people, and dominance, just like a mandrill.
[04:08.95] For a while, Hill and Barton were unable to work out a good experiment to test the idea.
[04:15.63] However,the 2004 Olympics in Athens gave them the perfect opportunity to do so. And so, in combat sports, such as boxing and tae kwon do,the two competing athletes were randomly assigned either red or blue kits to wear.
[04:33.90] This enabled Hill and Barton to compare the same athletes' performances when they were wearing different colours.
[04:41.14]By tracking the athletes' progress through the games, they found that those wearing the red kits were about 5% more likely to win their contest than those wearing blue.
[04:51.38] So, although wearing red could not, of course, change the athlete physically, it did seem to give them a small competitive advantage. Later studies showed that the effect of wearing red was an advantage in other sports, too.
[05:06.38] In football penalty taking, for example,they are less likely to score if the goalkeeper is wearing red.
[05:15.36] Although the effect of wearing red in sport is well established, the exact reason for it remains a matter of debate.There are three possibilities, of which one, two, or even all three have a significant impact.
[05:31.56] The first is that people who wear red feel themselves to be more dominant, which boosts their confidence as well as triggering physiological changes like an increased heart rate and higher testosterone levels, all of which could improve their performance.
[05:48.25] Another possibility is that the red colour might intimidate the competitor. So, in just the same way that the less dominant mandrill monkeys tend to avoid competing with the higher ranking monkeys with crimson faces,the individual may feel socially inferior to a competitor wearing red.
[06:07.63] The third possibility is that it might have something to do with the referees who score combat sports.
[06:14.35] In one experiment, the colours of outfits in videos of tae kwon do contests were changed,and then the videos were shown to experienced professional referees.
[06:25.51] Simply changing the colours of the contestants' clothing changed the way the referees scored them; whoever was wearing red was favoured.
[06:34.11]Although these early results are fascinating, colour psychology is still a very young science, and many of its findings are still at a very early stage of development.
[06:46.33] The experimental results need to be confirmed by further studies.
[06:51.05] However, in the future,the hope is that colour psychology will help in the production of more productive working environments.
