Are you a fan of the color red? Do you have preferences between Lava Red and Scarlet?
You're not alone with your favorite color, zebra finches like red, too. Males have red beaks and females love them.
A zebra finch might have a hard time deciding between Lava Red and Scarlet though. Researchers found that zebra finches categorize hues from light orange to dark red into two distinct groups—either orange or red.
In an experiment, researchers picked eight hues that represented typical male beak colors. They showed female finches a set of quarter-sized paper discs, some of which had two tones, and some of which had one solid color. The researchers taught the birds that if they flipped over the bicolor discs first, they received a treat. Then, they tested whether the finches would flip over the bicolor disc first even if the bicolored discs featured colors close together on the color spectrum.
Interestingly, the finches seemed to perceive a boundary line between orange and red. They were better at distinguishing between two colors that were on opposite sides of the boundary line than two colors on the same side, even if the colors in the pairs were equally far apart on the spectrum. Humans categorize colors like that too, which implies that our perception of color has deep biological roots.
So a zebra finch might not have your same preference for Lava Red over Scarlet.
Read more
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- How blind and sighted people understand color
- Colors and the brain
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