Canadian researchers say the colours we see may have an impact on how we think, with the colour red making people more detail oriented, while blue may inspire more creativity.

University of British Columbia researchers came to these conclusions after testing people in a variety of mental tasks performed on computers.

Each of the tasks took place in front of a screen that was red, blue or neutral in colour. In total, there were six tests and more than 600 participants.

The findings, to be published in the Friday issue of the journal Science, suggested people exposed to the blue screen performed better for creative tasks such as brainstorming ideas, while those performing tasks on the red screen performed better in tasks such as proofreading and memory retrieval.

Lead author Juliet Zhu of UBC's Sauder School of Business said the results are the first to study the impact of colour on the two different kinds of thinking, and could have an impact on everything from marketing to interior design.

"Previous research linked blue and red to enhanced cognitive performance, but disagreed on which provides the greatest boost," said Zhu in a statement. "It really depends on the nature of the task."

Zhu notes that while participants in one of the studies said they believed the colour blue would inspire creativity, they also believed it would improve their other cognitive skills.

But that wasn't the case with detail-oriented tasks, where participants exposed to the red screen performed 31 per cent better than those exposed to the blue screen.

When participants performed one test in which they rated advertisements, those who saw red backgrounds tended to focus on negative messages such as cavity fighting with toothpaste ads, while those who saw blue were more likely to remember more vocative messaging such as a toothpaste promoting "tooth whitening."

Zhu said the associations are unconscious, and are likely a result of learned associations: stop signs, the red pen of a teacher and emergency vehicles call to mind the need for caution, she says, while blue is often associated with the tranquility of open skies and water.

She adds that because associations with colours differ across cultures, the findings might not translate outside North America.

Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester, N.Y., a leader in the field of colour psychology, said the study could be a big advance, but cautioned the study didn't account for intensity and brightness of colour, factors which would have to be explored in future tests.

With files from the Associated Press