There is very little we can do about colour preferences: boys like blue, girls like pink. Researchers say these differences may have a basis in evolution in which females developed a preference for reddish colours associated with riper fruit and healthier faces.
Researchers in a study at Newcastle University led by neuroscientist Anya Hurlbert asked a group of men and women to look at about 1,000 pairs of coloured rectangles on a computer screen in a dark room and pick the ones they liked best as quickly as possible.
Afterwards, Hurlbert and colleagues plotted the results along the colour spectrum and found that while men prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.
Hurlbert believes women's preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue.
Hurlbert said for men, thinking about colours was less important because as hunters they just needed to spot something dark and shoot it.
As for Eve, Hurlbert added, maybe there was a different reason she picked that apple.
"Red was the colour of a good ripe fruit," Hurlbert said.
Do you believe your colour preferences are really in your genes?
More...
Researchers in a study at Newcastle University led by neuroscientist Anya Hurlbert asked a group of men and women to look at about 1,000 pairs of coloured rectangles on a computer screen in a dark room and pick the ones they liked best as quickly as possible.
Afterwards, Hurlbert and colleagues plotted the results along the colour spectrum and found that while men prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.
Hurlbert believes women's preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue.
Hurlbert said for men, thinking about colours was less important because as hunters they just needed to spot something dark and shoot it.
As for Eve, Hurlbert added, maybe there was a different reason she picked that apple.
"Red was the colour of a good ripe fruit," Hurlbert said.
Do you believe your colour preferences are really in your genes?
More...