Forma e colore nel riconoscimento degli oggetti: una ricerca con bambini e adulti

The objective of this research was to analyze the role of the colors in object recognition in children and adults. For this purpose we conducted three experiments: the first one is the pilot, it works as the guiding experiment for the following two, and is based on a sample of school age children. The aim of this observation was to verify the relation between shape and color, and their role in the recognition of atypical forms. The following two experiments were quite similar in their methodological procedure, but different in the sample we analyzed. The first experiment involved 34 children between 6 and 8 years of age; in the second one we put in relation a group of children between 9 and 11 years to a group of adults between 20 and 44 years. In both experiments we analyzed the role of shape and color in the recognition of common objects. We administered to our samples, via computer, 20 stimuli, of which: 10 named “diagnostic”, referring to objects that typically possess a specific color – i.e. yellow banana – and 10 “non-diagnostic”, referring to objects that can have any color – i.e. table. Both groups of stimuli have been proposed in three variations in color: original, in grayscale and with an incongruous color – i.e. blue lemon. Looking at the results we can see that every subject we had analyzed, both adults and children, they are influenced by the congruent color of the object, and that this factor remains stable as age increases.