The hidden power of colours | Patricia Thenisch | TEDxHWZ

[Applause] who of you had such a pretty pencil box when you were little oh I see a lot of hands great well I had one too when I was little and I could draw with it for hours and when thinking about elementary school I remember sitting at my desk opening the metallic lid of this box and then I was met by the sweet wooden smell of those pencils and one thing I especially enjoyed doing was sorting them according to that color so first I picked the yellow one then I picked the orange one then the

red one and so on until a beautiful rainbow pattern appeared well my drawing skills have improved over time I'm happy to tell you but one thing remained the same and that is my favorite color it is red till today but what about our favorite color how do we pick a favorite color and what actually drives those preferences well in fact we layer a meaning and a feeling onto it mostly taken from previous experiences so what do you think is the world's most favorite color it is blue and in this case researchers believe that people attribute

a positive memory onto it such as a clear blue sky or an idyllic ocean as I just told you red is my favorite color but ladies have you ever wondered why men sometimes have a hard time helping you pick a red lipstick the reason is women and men see red differently Yes you heard right researchers discovered the ability to see red and all its related Shades comes down to gender there's actually a gene that allows us to see red and all its related Shades and that Gene is linked to the X chromosome because women have

two X chromosome and men only have one they're equipped with a better ability to see red and all its related Shades whereas men don't necessarily see much of a difference between Ruby and apple red so ladies bear with them the next time you go shopping for colorful outfits namely red ones different colors evoke different emotions and that can also help us memorize things in order to illustrate that I would like to do a little experiment with you I therefore ask you to all grab that piece of paper and the pen that was placed on your

seat we're gonna have a little bit of fun now okay did everyone find it good okay before we start I'm assuming that all of you know what the WhatsApp logo on your smartphone looks like since you use it every day okay I see knotting heads great so I'm asking you to draw exactly that logo onto your piece of paper and you can start now and don't pick on your phones don't peek over to your neighbor just try to remember what the WhatsApp looks like well since you use it every day should be a piece of

cake okay three two one what have you got well I don't think a lot so let's look at the logo well from the noise that's going on in the audience I'm assuming that this wasn't an easy task right but to comfort you I did the same experiment with a couple of random people and this is what they came up with so you see seemingly so easy but difficult to execute and that is because we remember things mostly for the color and not necessarily for the text the symbol or the number so we have it the

hidden power of color speaking of smartphone apps a while ago I came across a guy on the internet who claimed sorting his smartphone apps according to color was a game changer for him he insisted that this approach helped him be much more efficient and he found his needed apps much faster and this is how we color sorted them the green up icons together with the green one the blue ones together with the blue ones and so on and this actually started quite a controversial discussion on the internet some finding this approach very smart and helpful

and use others just utterly useless so I was intrigued who is right in that debate of course I had to try it out and this is what my smartphone looks like today you see all my apps are in color coordinated folders and let me tell you it was a game changer for me too I find it much easier to navigate this way what does easier mean more efficient I did the math on average we unlock our phones 110 times a day which is a lot now assuming by rearranging our smartphone apps we gain two seconds

because we find them faster on this very fast one too it's not a lot well let me tell you that by the end of the year you end up saving 22 hours just because you rearranged your smartphone apps so I encourage you to try it this of course is pushed to the extreme but it shows how much of an impact colors can have on our lives so colors are a fascinating subject and they can also impact on how we feel so how do you feel about yellow is a very cheery and bright color yellow is

like the good friend that you want to have in your team the one that is always positive and fun to be around but people there is a reason why you never see yellow in the Interiors of public transportation the color yellow can actually make you feel dizzy and nauseous and for this reason you almost never find it in airplanes colors are all fun and games but they can also play little tricks on our minds a coffee shop with light blue walls was so tired about hearing their customers complain about the cold that they painted their

walls Orange the temperature stayed exactly the same but the complaining stopped entirely and that is because certain colors prompt a warmer feeling when we look at them whereas others have a naturally cooling effect on our subconscious Minds a scene from a black and white movie is much easier to be remembered than a film-minded color let's look at this picture what do we see well we see a lot of gray and black and white and buildings and rectangles and not a lot going on but as soon as we add color to it the entire thing changes

the picture instantly becomes vibrant full of energy and we suddenly attribute a positive emotion to it that we didn't do before so we have it again the hidden power of color because the previous exercise was so much fun we're gonna do a second one but you don't need to take your papers you can put them down again I just need to focus you on the next two slides and you were seeing a black dot in the middle which will help you to focus on the picture so I'm asking you to really look at the screen

at all times I until I tell you to do otherwise so we're going to start with that one a beautiful black and white scenery you see the black dot in the middle and to make it a bit more fun we're going to add colors and it's actually the inverted colors of the original picture so here let's focus on that image just look at it and focus on the black dot in the middle for a couple of seconds Don't Look Away really concentrate on that picture a couple more seconds five four three two one what did

you see well you saw color even though it's a black and white picture and there is a scientific explanation to that which is called chromatic adaptation which I'm not going to explain today my point here is that our brain always and all the time craves color and it will add it where it deems it necessary this by the way is the original picture and these are the colors that you thought you saw before colors are quite important in our lives and they have a big impact I'm gonna give you a number first 62 to 90

percent what does that mean well that you know that 62 to 90 percent of a first impression is made up due to color when people meet for the first time the majority majority of their impressions are made up of color recognition research has found that people wearing bright and friendly colors are more likely to form positive bonds compared to people wearing black and neutral colors when I entered the stage and I stepped on that red carpet the majority of you people in the room made a subconscious judgment about the colors I'm wearing today they can

be good they can be bad doesn't matter but you might subconscious judgment even though you didn't want to your brain forces you to make a judgment and that's quite impressive I find where we have it again the hidden power of color so let's go back to our early days since our childhood callers play a vital role in our lives but now you may wonder how can you use that hidden power of color to your advantage it's very simple number one be more efficient colors can help you be more efficient color sort you wardrobe so you

don't waste time in the morning picking out an outfit color sort your smartphone apps so you find you needed apps much faster or the next time you ask your children to tidy up their Lego bricks ask them to color certain first this way it will not only help them develop their sorting skills it will also give them a sense of achievement number two make a lasting impression pick a color in the morning that helps you in what you want to achieve that day going for a job interview where that navy blue blazer because navy blue

inspires confidence want to make a lasting impression on an audience make sure you include a mix of popping colors into your outfit and it will make a difference and number three simply be aware of the emotional impact that colors can have the colors that you surround yourself influence your perspective and your emotions as well as those around you colors are also a way of communicating without words and they play an important role in conveying information the importance of color however isn't always obvious with some level of self-reflection I therefore encourage you to use that potential

power of color to not only make your life a little easier but most of all a lot more impactful [Applause]