Remember the color.
After seeing a color for three seconds, how accurately can you rebuild it with three sliders?
Original study
- Newhall, S. M., Burnham, R. W., & Clark, J. R. (1957). Comparison of successive with simultaneous color matching. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 47(1), 43–56. Source
- Bartleson, C. J. (1960). Memory colors of familiar objects. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 50(1), 73–77. Source
- Bae, G.-Y., Olkkonen, M., Allred, S. R., & Flombaum, J. I. (2015). Why some colors appear more memorable than others: A model combining categories and particulars in color working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), 744–763. Source
- Olkkonen, M., McCarthy, P. F., & Allred, S. R. (2014). The central tendency bias in color perception: Effects of internal and external noise. Journal of Vision, 14(11), 5. Source
- Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S., & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2006). Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience, 9(11), 1367–1368. Source
- Mahy, M., Van Eycken, L., & Oosterlinck, A. (1994). Evaluation of uniform color spaces developed after the adoption of CIELAB and CIELUV. Color Research & Application, 19(2), 105–121. See also: Sharma, G., & Trussell, H. J. (1997). Digital color imaging. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 6(7), 901–932. https://doi.org/10.1109/83.597268 Source
- Luo, M. R., Cui, G., & Rigg, B. (2001). The development of the CIE 2000 colour-difference formula: CIEDE2000. Color Research & Application, 26(5), 340–350. Source
- Sharma, G., Wu, W., & Dalal, E. N. (2005). The CIEDE2000 color-difference formula: Implementation notes, supplementary test data, and mathematical observations. Color Research & Application, 30(1), 21–30. Source
Our adaptation
A game adaptation of color memory tasks (Newhall et al., 1957). In each of five rounds the target color fills the whole screen for 3 seconds; rounds 2 and 4 then add a 4-second neutral gray delay. The color is then rebuilt with hue, saturation and brightness strips (HSB). Error is the CIEDE2000 color difference (ΔE00).
Differences from the original study
- Screens are not calibrated; night mode and automatic color settings affect results.
- HSB strips are not perceptually uniform.
- Because target and answer fill the screen, brief chromatic adaptation can occur.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
colors | JSON | Rounds: [[target hue, saturation, brightness, answer hue, saturation, brightness, delay 1/0, time in ms] × 5] (HSB; hue 0–360, others 0–100). |
de_1 | number | Error in the round (ΔE00). (item 1) |
de_2 | number | Error in the round (ΔE00). (item 2) |
de_3 | number | Error in the round (ΔE00). (item 3) |
de_4 | number | Error in the round (ΔE00). (item 4) |
de_5 | number | Error in the round (ΔE00). (item 5) |
pts_1 | number | Round score (0–10): 10 / (1 + (ΔE00 / 22)^1.6). (item 1) |
pts_2 | number | Round score (0–10): 10 / (1 + (ΔE00 / 22)^1.6). (item 2) |
pts_3 | number | Round score (0–10): 10 / (1 + (ΔE00 / 22)^1.6). (item 3) |
pts_4 | number | Round score (0–10): 10 / (1 + (ΔE00 / 22)^1.6). (item 4) |
pts_5 | number | Round score (0–10): 10 / (1 + (ΔE00 / 22)^1.6). (item 5) |
points | number | Total score (0–50). |
dl | number | Mean lightness deviation (answer L* − target L*; positive = lighter). |
dc | number | Mean chroma deviation (positive = more saturated). |
de_immediate | number | Mean ΔE00 in rounds without delay (1, 3, 5). |
de_delay | number | Mean ΔE00 in delayed rounds (2, 4). |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
Only answers in the current format (format 2) are published. The server range-checks the targets and answers of all five rounds and computes errors and scores itself.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
- Answers given in the old task format (format 1) are not included; only the current format is published.
Scoring
Leaderboard score: total score (0–50); higher is better.
Leaderboard measure: color memory (higher is better). The play_score column in the open data is this score for the first play.
Version notes
- October 2026
Switched to the arcade format (format 2): the task and the score scale changed, and older plays were removed from the leaderboard. The open data contains format 2 answers only.
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.