Research | The Sussex Colour Group & Baby Lab | England

The Development of Colour Perception

We investigate how infants and children see, think and learn about colour, and the process by which this colour perception develops.  This gives us insight into children’s perceptual and cognitive development, and into infants’ response to the world around them.  Understanding how colour perception develops also gives insight into how it works in its mature form. 

We have shown that infants have a remarkably rich visual experience of colour, can perceive its dimensions, and can categorise it using the sensory mechanisms of colour vision.  Our studies reveal that infants have visual preferences for some colours over others, which strikingly resemble adults’ colour preferences.  We also find that infants’ sensitivity to colour relates to the statistical regularities of colour in the natural environment, and that young children are able to keep colour perceptually constant despite changes in illumination.  This perceptual constancy also relates to how well children can name colours.  Working with older children, we have found that the presence of red has a slight effect on children’s performance on cognitive tasks in some contexts. We have also characterised how colour is perceived in children with neurodevelopmental conditions such as Autism.

We have applied our findings on the development of colour perception to develop a gamified psychophysical iPad app, called ColourSpot, which diagnoses colour vision deficiency (colour blindness) in children as young as 4.  We also work with companies who design products for infants and young children (e.g., toys, books, TV), weaving the methods and findings of our science into their design process.