The influence of color information on the recognition of color diagnostic and noncolor diagnostic objects.

In the present study, the authors explore in detail the level of visual object recognition at which perceptual color information improves the recognition of color diagnostic and noncolor diagnostic objects. To address this issue, 3 object recognition tasks with different cognitive demands were designed: (a) an object verification task; (b) a category verification task; and (c) a name verification task. The authors found that perceptual color information improved color diagnostic object recognition mainly in tasks for which access to the semantic knowledge about the object was necessary to perform the task; that is, in category and name verification. In contrast, the authors found that perceptual color information facilitates noncolor diagnostic object recognition when access to the object's structural description from long-term memory was necessary--that is, object verification. In summary, the present study shows that the role of perceptual color information in object recognition is dependent on color diagnosticity.