Red all over: how the color red affects a referee's judgment

Many sports teams select their uniforms based on the mascot, city or country they are representing, not on a referee's preference or bias. But a new study has found that choosing the color red for a uniform in competitive sports can actually affect the referee's split-second decision-making ability and even promote a scoring bias.

Psychologists Norbert Hagemann, Bernd Strauss and Jan Leibing from the University of Munster specifically found that referees tended to assign more points to tae kwon do competitors dressed in red than those dressed in blue.

The researchers presented 42 experienced tae kwon do referees with videos of blue- and red-clad competitors sparring. The two sets of clips were identical except that the colors were reversed in the second set, making the red athlete appear to be wearing blue and vice versa. The referees were then asked to score the performance of each competitor, red or blue, after each video.

The psychologists found that when the competitors appeared to be wearing red, they were awarded an average of 13% more points than the blue competitors, even though every athlete was presented in both colors at some point. What's more, points awarded seemed to increase after the blue athlete was digitally transformed into a red athlete and decrease when the red competitor changed to blue.

The findings, which appear in the August 2008 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that referees may hold a split-second bias toward red-clad athletes when the competitors are evenly matched in skill: "Referees' decisions will 'tip the scales' when athletes are relatively well-matched but have relatively small influence when one is clearly superior," wrote the authors.

"Although there is a need for further research, including research on the effects of different colors, our results suggest a need to change the rules or support referees by providing electronic decision-making aids in those sports in which this color bias may be a problem," they concluded.

Source: Association for Psychological Science

Related stories:

Hollywood moguls see cinema's future in 3D
Three-dimensional films, once blamed for making audiences nauseous, are making a comeback and are likely to become the future of cinema thanks to digital technology, Hollywood studio moguls say.
US has Sun King's stolen gem, say French experts
French experts said on Tuesday they had proof that the Hope Diamond, a star exhibit in Washington's Smithsonian Institution, is a legendary gem once owned by King Louis XIV that was looted in the French Revolution.
Evolution of the visual system is key to abstract art
Famous works of abstract art achieve popularity by using shapes that resonate with the neural mechanisms in the brain linked to visual information, a psychologist at the University of Liverpool has discovered.
'Nanobamas' fuse art, science, technology and politics
(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Michigan professor has created 3-D portraits of the president-elect that are smaller than a grain of salt. He calls them "nanobamas."
Animated T-shirts make geek gifts for holidays
The holidays are almost upon us and once again I go into my gift buying mode to help you find that perfect holiday gift for the techno-person in your life. A great place to start discovering some of the coolest technology gifts is from the folks at ThinkGeek. You wouldn't think that clothing would fall under the heading of technology but this year, ThinkGeek offers a line of T-shirts that truly cross the line.
Shedding light on ancient oceans
(PhysOrg.com) -- There's a powerful source of energy humming away inside a laboratory at the University of Alberta. The energy is ultra-violet light, and it packs the same spectrum of rays that kept this planet lifeless for billions of years.
New treatment desensitizes children's allergies
One M&M, swallowed whole, and little Noelle's skin turned as red as a Cortland apple. A month later, after eating soy ice cream, the 2-year-old turned colors again and started drooling, prompting her mother to inject a syringe full of epinephrine into the child's leg.
Winning Ph.D. research boosts the search for sensitive sensors
Research that could lead to brighter LCD screens, more efficient solar panels, improved biomedical imaging and high-tech security sensors has won the University of Melbourne's Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in PhD.

News discussion:

Medicine & Health news