Interaction between color and attentional level in children’s conflict control

Perception of color can affect cognition and behavior in humans. Although there has been increasing interest in the effect of red on cognitive performance in adults, little is known about how red affects children’s cognition. The current study investigates the role of attention in the effect of red on conflict control among children aged 9–13 years, by the manipulation of selective attention (color-attended vs. color-unattended) to each color (red, green and grey) during the Flanker task with a blocked design. In the color-unattended block, participants judged the orientation of the central arrow (target) regardless of its color. In the color-attended block, participants selectively responded to the target with a pre-cued color before each block. The results showed that participants responded to the red targets faster than the grey targets for the congruent trials in the color-unattended block; however, they responded to the red and green targets slower than the grey targets for the incongruent trials in the color-attended block. These findings suggested that red also affected children’s conflict control and the effect was modulated by the attention level of color.