EFFECTS OF COLLOR IN GENERATING CREATIVE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY OF PEOPLE IN BOOTH SPACE

Abstract

  In light of Japan's demographic dilemma—falling birthrate, aging population, and diminishing productive-age population—figuring out ways to improve intellectual productivity in the workplace is critically important. We are seeing increased opportunities for people to work individually or in groups. Working in close collaboration with others in the same work space involves the exchange of ideas and sharing of opinions. This study focuses on color as an element of the environment, and presents an experiment in which multiple subjects are confined to a booth in which the walls are 1 of 4 different colors yellow, white, blue or green—and are asked to perform a research task involving conversation. As the subjects chat among themselves in the different color environments, we measured their cerebral blood flow, which is indicative of brain activity. This allows us to assess the effects of the different colors in generating creative intellectual activity.