Numerical Task Stroop Effect Experiment
Annette Franco
University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
Abstract
This study added to the well know innovation of the Stroop effect and experiment by John Ridley Stroop through a Stroop task experiment. There were twenty participants who completed two conditions, which tested reaction time. For each condition the participants were asked to read aloud the number of digits that appeared on each row as fast as they could. One condition number figure matched the number of digits. The second condition did not match the number figure with the number of digits. After the experiment was done, it showed a significant difference for reaction time between both the conditions. The Stroop task demonstrates
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At the beginning stages, reading takes some effort, and conscious attempts at sounding out the letters of each word. As people practice reading skills, they finally learn to read without trying. When a behavior or skill no longer requires direct effort to be completed, cognitive psychologists say it is automatized (CogLab). Automatization is fascinating because it is an important part of daily life. Most people perform a numerous of automatized behaviors quickly and effortlessly. People often think they can multi-task, but classic research by J. Ridley Stroop shows differently. Stroop (1935) demonstrated that if someone is reading information, and other conflicting information is added, the rate in which a person will read the information would slow down. Stroop presented his participant with 100 words, each word spelled out a color, but the ink of the word was different from what it spelled. His participants were asked to report the color of the ink the word represented. The interface of conflicting color stimuli upon the time for reading 100 words caused an increase 2.3 seconds over the normal time for reading the same words printed in black (Stroop, 1935). Stoop found that participants performed slower to read the color of ink when the ink was used to produce color names different from the color of the ink. For example, the participants were slower to identify red ink when it spelled the word blue. The reasoning for this experiment is to test the Strop effect. The experimental hypothesis is that the time of reading the incongruent list of digits will be longer than that of the congruent list of
The Stroop experiment by J. Ridley Stroop in 1935 was performed in order to analyze the reaction time of participant’s stimuli and desired results while also obtaining a collective result of color interference and word reading(Stroop, 1935; Lee & Chan, 2000). In the experiment three forms of the test were given, the first consisting of color patches, the second had the color words printed in black and the other was an incongruent test beaming the color did not match the color word
The Stroop effect was tested on four different tasks. Nineteen Queens College students were recruited by flyer, and each were assigned to a word reading task, color reading task, color inhibition task, and word inhibition task. They were timed using a stopwatch function on a cell phone, to name the color, or word to the quickest of their ability. In the order from longest reaction time to shortest: inhibition color naming task, color naming task, inhibition word reading, and word reading. This study shows that people can read words more quickly than they can name colors, and that inhibiting an automatic response to color/word tasks will take longer to do than tasks that do not involve inhibition.
In the Stroop (1935) experiment he has proved that the effect is going to be one of the two slower or faster. In the non-conflict, some of the participants had to read two sets of words: set one with word written in their contradicting word so this has made it to be conflicting. Stroop (1935) came out to find that there are different association of words and the colors. Stroop (1935) wanted to see if they had any differences in the reaction time when the association was conducted. He noticed that the participants took longer read the conflicting word rather than the actual name word. The non-conflict was much easier and faster to do.
The research assessed in this article discusses the Stroop effect. The Stroop effect occurs when our selective attention fails and we are unable to attend to some information and ignore the rest. This study tests the Stroop effect by presenting the participant with a congruent or incongruent word and the participant is asked to type the color of the word or the actual word in a series of trials. In this research, it has been found that participants had faster reaction times for congruent items and slower reaction times for incongruent items. In addition, participants had faster reaction times when
In another study, five experiments were conducted to determine if coloring a single Stroop element reduced automaticity or slowed the processing of a color. The results demonstrated that indeed it slowed processing of congruent and neutral stimuli more than it slows processing of incongruent stimuli (Monahan, 2001).
An interesting challenge arises when a task such as color naming is identified as both controlled and automatic, by varying the other task involved. Color naming is identified as a controlled process when the other task is word reading, but as an automatic process when the other task is shape naming. Cohen, Dunbar and McClelland (1990) proposed an alternative explanation of the Stroop effect, which does not distinguish between automatic and controlled processing. Instead, they proposed that automaticity is a range, and that Stroop interference depends on the relative degree of learning the particular tasks, not on processing speed.
In the Stroop task 8 college student participants from a cognitive lab course. Two participants were males and the remaining 6 participants were female. Using a computerized program Cedrus SuperLab 4.5 the participants were tested in the Stroop Task. The participants were asked to identify four colors, blue, green, red or yellow. In addition, participants were also asked to identify the names of the colors they saw by pressing a corresponding computer key with their middle and index fingers, D for red, F for blue, J for green, and K for yellow. Our experiment was conducted in two phases a practice phase and a testing phase.
The revolutionary study by, Stroop (1935) used 5 different colors; purple, brown, green, blue, and red in a color-word naming task. Subjects had to say the color of the word while it was printed in different color ink. For example, the word “blue” would be written in the color red. They first did this using the colored words and then repeated the process with the words printed in black. They found that the colored word condition suggested a 2.3s longer reaction time than the black word condition. This is due to the inference of automatic word reading in the color word condition.
The stroop test is focused on mental functions, based on usual human behaviour it is believed that the participants involved in the stroop test will react faster to words under the matched condition in comparison to the mismatched condition. The reaction time between the stimulus and the response will be longer when the font and the colour are different from each other.
We are replicating J.R. Stroop’s original experiment The Stroop Effect (Stroop, 1935). The aim of the study was to understand how automatic processing interferes with attempts to attend to sensory information. The independent variable of our experiment was the three conditions, the congruent words, the incongruent words, and the colored squares, and the dependent variable was the time that it took participants to state the ink color of the list of words in each condition. We used repeated measures for the experiment in order to avoid influence of extraneous variables. The participants were 16-17 years of age from Garland High School. The participants will be timed on how long it takes them to say the color of the squares and the color of the words. The research was conducted in the Math Studies class. The participants were aged 16-17 and were students at Garland High School. The results showed that participants took the most time with the incongruent words.
The “Stroop Test” or “Stroop Effect”, gets its unique name from Dr. John Ridley Stroop; in the 1930’s. The Stroop effect, charts a person’s reaction time to the task; these results will show the nature of the individual automatic processing versus their conscious visual control. The Stroop Effect involves positively identifying the color of the word listed instead of the word itself; as fast as possible. The test is based on two types of trails; congruent when words and colors match and incongruent when the words and colors do not match. The Stroop Test is a test that examines ones’ cognitive skills and level. According to Zaps, cognitive tests examine cognition, which is the mental activity that includes thinking and the understanding
J. Ridley Stroop created a study that explains the stroop effect in the year 1935. In two experiments, he first compared reading a list of words printed in black with reading the same list of words but this time printed incongruently (the name of the color conflicts with its ink color). At first, Stroop observed that there lies very little difference in the reading time for the two lists and that it took a little longer to name the color
Results demonstrated that the hypothesis was correct. Based on these results, there is an automatization that occurs and is being affected by the Stroop Effect causing the task to become extremely difficult.
The first experiment, which is the primary focus, aimed to see if people’s attention is affected when participants read out a list of colors written in the color it represents and a list of words written in a differing color. ("The aim of the experiment was to see if people's attention is affected by using The Stroop Effect. - GCSE Maths - Marked by Teachers.com") The experiment used 70 undergraduates as participants and had half of the undergraduates read the color of the names printed in black ink then read the color of the names where the color of the print and the word are different.
However a correlation was found between increased reaction time and conflicting stimuli when the participants were given stimuli two and three and asked to name the stimulus’ colour. This interference was name the “Stroop effect”.