By Richard Morin
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A02

Who Would Have Thought?  Red Rooms, Tattoos and Celeb Autographs

 "Effect of color schemes and environmental sensitivity on job satisfaction and perceived performance," by Nancy Kwallek et al in Perception and Motor Skills, Vol. 101, No. 2. A University of Texas architecture professor and her colleagues find employees are happier and think they work harder in rooms where the walls are painted white or blue-green than in rooms painted red.

· "College Students, Tattoos, and Sexual Activity," by Jerome R. Koch et al. Psychological Reports, Vol. 97, No. 3. Data gathered from 450 college students by two Texas Tech University researchers suggest that virtually all tattooed students had sex at least once in their lives, compared with fewer than three-quarters of students without tattoos. Tattooed men became sexually active, on average, 18 months earlier than non-tattooed men, while tattooed women did so, on average, five months earlier than non-tattooed women.

· "Rising Stars, Superstars and Dying Stars: Hedonic Explorations of Autograph Prices," by Martin Snell et al. Paper to be presented at the Canadian Economics Association's annual meeting next month in Montreal. A University of Portsmouth economist and his colleagues studied the catalogue of the leading British autograph dealer and found that signatures of dead celebrities and sports stars are worth twice as much as those from living personalities, movie stars are valued more than TV stars, and autographs of dead artists and writers are valued most of all.