Well-reasoned or empirically-proven standards for coloring rows in a grid?

I'm writing some code to color the rows of a grid based on their contents: Each row in the grid is a task summary, and the user can tag each row with a different color representing that message's priority/status.

There are at least 4 variables here:

1. A row's background color when it's not selected.
2. A row's text color when it's not selected.
3. A row's background color when it is selected.
4. A row's text color when it is selected.

For example, you could color the background of a row and make the text always be black. Or change the text color to black or white, whichever creates higher contrast. Or you could leave the backgrounds white and make just the text colored. When selecting a row, you could always have the selected row have a blue background and white text (which has the drawback of hiding the priority/status color until you select a different row), etc., blah blah blah.

Has any one approach been shown empirically to be better than most others?

Are there any general rules of thumb here th开发者_运维技巧at people have discovered, e.g., keeping the text and background colors high contrast?

Can anyone point me to a well-reasoned and/or well-researched analysis of coloring items in a grid?

A well-reasoned and well-researched analysis of coloring items in a grid:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebrastripingdoesithelp/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebrastripingmoredataforthecase/