SS-11 Seeing red for the wrong reasons: Color priming and error detection.

If you are not typing, you will probably write in ink. Academic instructors use pens to grade assignments, students use them to take notes, and business professionals may use them to sign contracts and much more. Interestingly, research indicates that the color of ink significantly influences cognition and behavior. For example, studies have shown that writing in red ink is closely associated with negative feedback or failure. However, with the rise of technology, it is unclear whether these findings apply to today’s digital world, where people rely more on typing than writing in ink. The current study investigated whether exposing participants to a specific ink color would impact their performance on different cognitive tasks. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: green ink, red ink, or black ink. They were first asked to evaluate fictitious logos printed in green, red, or black ink using a pen of the same color as the logo. Then, participants were instructed to complete word stems, with some associated with failure or negative connotations. Lastly, participants were asked to find mistakes in a short essay and assign a final grade. It was hypothesized that giving participants red pens and exposing them to red logos would result in more negative word stems created, more errors found in the essay, and the lowest grades given. Conversely, giving participants green pens and exposing them to green logos would result in the fewest negative word stems, the fewest errors found in the essay, and the highest grades given. Findings may suggest that ink color can significantly influence cognitive performance and perception, which have important implications for optimizing feedback practices in education and professional settings.