On Colour, Category Effects, and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Critical Review of Studies and Further Longitudinal Evidence

The role of colour in object recognition is controversial; in this study, a critical review of previous studies, as well as a longitudinal study, was conducted. We examined whether colour benefits the ability of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and normal controls (NC) when naming items differing i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioural neurology 2015-01, Vol.2015 (2015), p.1-12
Main Authors: Moreno-Martínez, F. Javier, Rodríguez-Rojo, Inmaculada C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertising executives
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alzheimer Disease - psychology
Alzheimer's disease
Color
Female
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Medical research
Medicine, Experimental
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Verbal Behavior - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The role of colour in object recognition is controversial; in this study, a critical review of previous studies, as well as a longitudinal study, was conducted. We examined whether colour benefits the ability of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and normal controls (NC) when naming items differing in colour diagnosticity: living things (LT) versus nonliving things (NLT). Eleven AD patients were evaluated twice with a temporal interval of 3 years; 26 NC were tested once. The participants performed a naming task (colour and greyscale photographs); the impact of nuisance variables (NVs) and potential ceiling effects were also controlled. Our results showed that (i) colour slightly favoured processing of items with higher colour diagnosticity (i.e., LT) in both groups; (ii) AD patients used colour information similarly to NC, retaining this ability over time; (iii) NVs played a significant role as naming predictors in all the participants, relegating domain to a minor plane; and (iv) category effects (better processing of NLT) were present in both groups. Finally, although patients underwent semantic longitudinal impairment, this was independent of colour deterioration. This finding provides better support to the view that colour is effective at the visual rather than at the semantic level of object processing.
ISSN:0953-4180
1875-8584
DOI:10.1155/2015/960725