London - Brown and grey are babies' least favourite colours, while blue, red, purple and orange are favourites.
The Surrey Baby Lab surveyed 250 babies to check their response to colour. "It's a myth that newborn babies are colour-blind. They can see colour, but it does develop over the coming months," Anna Franklin said.
One of the tests involved showing babies as young as four months different colours on a monitor and watching the response, timing how long they looked at the monitor.
Individual babies showed individual preferences, but variety was key to retaining their interest.
"Some babies show a striking preference for just one colour, while others will like a few colours," said Franklin, the doctor who led the study.
"What we have shown is if you repeatedly show babies a blue then another shade of blue, they will treat it the same and get bored.
"But if you show them a green, they will perk up and start looking again. That shows babies are aware that blues fall into the same category of colour," she said.
Showing colours in pairs revealed that babies looked longest at blue, red, purple and orange and shortest at brown.
Franklin said that one practical application of the research was that if parents knew which colour their baby liked best, they could paint the nursery in that colour.
"But my hunch would be that it is best to expose babies to a whole range of colours for their development," she added. - Sapa-dpa