The development of eyewitness memory for colour.

This thesis reports a series of studies in which the accuracy and development of memory for colour was examined. In Experiments 1-3 the ability of seven year olds, nine year olds and adults to recall picture-colour under incidental and intentional conditions was investigated. In Experiment 1, encoding condition influenced recall, with intentional recall for colour better than incidental recall, though in Experiments 2 and 3 the affect of encoding condition was less consistent. Increasing exposure time of stimuli had no affect on memory for colour, although increasing the number of stimuli did reduce recall accuracy. Participant age affected colour recall. In general, adults recalled more than the seven and nine year olds. The results of Experiments 1-3 failed to satisfy Hasher and Zacks' (1979) automaticity criteria.
Pre-schoolers' ability to use a non-verbal memory aid to heir them recall colour was examined in Experiment 4. Recall for colour was good in this study, and the provision of a colour chart led to increased memory for colour. The results of Experiment 5 confirmed that children can remember object colour, especially when recall cues are provided. In Experiment 6, the memory of four, six and nine year olds, and a group of adults was tested for a story told in conjunction with a model room. The colour recall of all groups approached ceiling levels. The results of Experiments 4 to 6 did not support the findings of several researchers who have concluded that memory for colour is a particularly poor aspect of recall.
In Experiments 7 and 8, recall for the colours of objects used in a series of simple tasks was examined. Recall for the colour of items which had been directly manipulated was good, however few participants recalled the colour of any peripheral items. Although age differences were observed in Experiments 6-8, the overall rate of recall for the incidental colour information presented in Experiments 4-8 was good, this contrasted with the level of colour recall observed in Experiments 1-3. Thus there was an influence or stimuli type on recall for colour, with the colour of the three dimensional objects used in Experiments 4-8 being better recalled than the pictures used in the earlier experiments. The results of Experiments 1-8 are discussed with reference to previous eyewitness research, and to the development for memory for colour.