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Research Paper On Stroop Effect

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The Stroop Effect is a psychological occurrence, and is usually defined as the inability to say words that are the names of colors, yet colored in a different ink color than the color’s name (example: green). This was first documented by John Ridley Stroop, in 1935, and he found that it took almost 74% longer for a person to read those words with incongruent colors as opposed to those same words being printed in just black. Some other researchers later used his findings and began to test the Stroop Effect with words associated with colors, like fire (red/orange) and water (blue), and even words that sounded like colors, such as wred and bloo. They found that the Stroop Effect extends to these words too! This gave some researchers the idea that maybe the brain is wired to recognize certain words instantly. The Stroop Effect is technically unexplained. No researcher has figured out what causes this strange phenomenon. …show more content…

Shape is also processed in the Inferior Temporal Cortex, which leads me to believe that changing the shape of my words will increase the reaction times of my subjects. After all, if two things being processed is confusing, won’t three things create more confusion? But on the other hand, if the subjects can’t read the words that are shaped into a circle, it may be easier for them to say the incongruent ink color! Overall, I think that the Stroop Effect is amazing. Not only does it befuddle our Inferior Temporal Cortex, in turn making us stop and think twice, but also increases our reaction times up to three-fourths larger than it should normally be! I also never knew that all three of the stimuli I am testing are located in the ame region of the brain. I hope that I can find a conclusion on my project’s overall driving question: Does changing the shape of incongruently colored words affect reaction

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