The Stroop Effect

The Stroop effect is demonstrated by the reaction time to determine a color when the color is printed in a different color’s name. Participants respond slower or make more errors when the meaning of the word is incongruent with the color of the word. Despite knowing the meaning of the word, participants showed incapability of ignoring the stimulus attribute. This reflects a clear instance of semantic interference and an unfathomed failure of selective attention (Stroop, 1935).

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.

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.

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

However, evidence from a recent series of experiments conducted by MacLeod and Dunbar (1988) suggests that the processes involved in the Stroop task may have not been inadequate. In their experiment they taught participants to use color words as names for arbitrary shapes that actually appeared in a neutral color. After 288 trials where there was a 72 trials per stimulus, participants could perform this shape-naming task without difficulty. At this point, the effect that ink color had on shape naming was tested by presenting participants with conflicting and congruent stimuli for example, shapes colored to conflict or agree with their assigned names. Ink color produced large interference and facilitation effects. However, when the task was reversed, and subjects were asked to state the color of the ink in which the

The Stroop test consisted two major posters of word lists: Incongruent list and Neutral list. Each poster included 20 words in 2 columns of 10 words each. All letters were stenciled, capitalized and 1 ¾ inches high. Both incongruent and neutral words were listed on the 56 x 71 cm posters Stopwatch with 0.01-second accuracy was used to time to measure how long participants took to read both incongruent and neutral word lists, which is a dependent variable for this experiment.

This experiment investigated the Stroop effect comparing response times between naming colour ink printed in colour-associated words and colour neutral words. Previous research of two-process theories which support Stroop's studies [cited in Edgar:2007] found that automatic processes can interfere with controlled processes. To test this interference further, colour-associated words were employed. Results of this experiment show a statistically significant difference in condition response times, with naming the colour ink printed in colour-associated words taking longer than those in colour

Limitations are demand characteristics and that is why we used non-psychology students in order to reduce this variable. The independent variable was the color stimuli. In the control congruent words test, the color stimulus was color words all printed in black. In the incongruent words test the color stimulus was colored words printed in different colors to what they are written as ( Blue written in red ink). The dependent variable was the time it took the participants to name the colors. During the incongruent word test, participants were not allowed to leave any error

A study was conducted by J.R. Stroop in order to test the effects of automaticity, specifically on reading. In one condition, Stroop presented his participants with 100 words, each of which spelled out a color, but the ink of the word was a different color than

The results of the information processing lab support the text in a number of ways. As the number of choices increased, the total response time also increased, verifying Hick’s Law. This then indicates that as the trials became more complex, information processing time was influenced. However, the subjects were able to bypass the complexity of the task when they were able to preview the color or

1. The authors decided to do a replication of a study performed by of Ramachandran & Hubbard (2001) and Hubbard (2005). From this study researchers looked at individuals who had synaesthetes and how they interpreted shapes, numbers and colors. Results from their study showed that individuals who had synaesthetes performed better by interpreting certain pictures by using more of the ‘pop-out’ effect rather than using the serial search effect. It also “assumed that color and shapes are processed independently, which does not hold true for people who have synathecia, giving that some amount of grapheme processing must be required for the color to be included”(Ramachandran & Hubbard 2001b, 2003b). Due to these findings researchers decided to “correct”

Study examined the Stroop effect in words which are not colours, but represent related object connected to certain colours and whether that would yield similar or the same effect as the classic Stroop study. Previous studies such as Stroop's (1935) found out a clash between controlled and automatic processing, which resulted in delayed answering. This experiment was conducted for 20 participants of both sexes and various age categories. They were given two lists consisting each of 30 coloured words. One half of these words were colour-neutral and other colour-relevant. As was expected, the colour-neutral were processed much faster. It is therefore

The participants were also told to draw a line in an ascending pattern (from 1 to A; A to 2; 2 to B and so on)” and join all numbers and letters together. However, low scores in both parts of the TMT tests indicate an improved performance (Hayes et al., 2011). Another six studies test performed during the study was Stroop Color and Word test. The test score was based on observing the participants performance. The participants were asked to call out the color letters printed in black ink in 45 seconds. They mentioned color of letter Xs. Moreover, colored words test was also given where participants were to call out the color written in contrasting color ink (example the word ‘red’ printed in blue ink), and were asked to mention the ink color that the

To understand the concept of Stroop effect, learning the definition is the first step in learning. To define the meaning, it is “a test for this effect in which individuals are presented with lists of color words in matching and non-matching colors and the time they take to read the different words, or the number of errors they make, is recorded.” (Stroop effect | definition of Stroop effect by Medical dictionary). With Stroop effect, we try to recognize and identify such colors and numbers. In the article, Rethinking the role of automaticity in cognitive control, by Chris Blais , Michael B. Harris , Jennifer V. Guerrero and Silvia A. Bunge, the subjects' performance is fundamentally based on implicit, rather than explicit, knowledge of the

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.