Introduction
By the age of seven, reading is an activity many children are well accustomed to. With the amount of time most individuals have been reading, this task is relatively easy. Yet, there are still instances in which we are reading a novel, a magazine, or even a simple text message, and we simply cannot manage to remember what we read. This is event is due to interference. Interference theory states that there are two forms of interference that can hinder our ability to properly encode information into our memory (Bergstrom 1892), proactive interference and retroactive interference. When reading, however, visual interference can play a large part in disrupting out learning process.
In the experiment commonly known for the development
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A controlled process is a task which is new or unique to the person. It is serial, takes heavy demands on attention, requires conscious efforts to direct attention towards the task and is slow. Whereas an automatic process is a task which has already been learned. It can be parallel, makes no demands on attention, does not need conscious direction of attention towards the task and is fast. This implies that when we are presented with a word, the action of stating its color is a relatively new task compared to the already learnt behavior to read just words. Therefore, reading is seen as the automatic process which interferes with the slower controlled process of stating the color. With the alteration of the original Stroop Effect experiment, the automaticity model is discredited due to the fact that instead of stating the word the participant points at the observed color instead. This nonverbal response, pointing at the color, is not believed to be an automatic process, thus the automaticity model is questioned when researchers note an interference in the speed of processing in incongruently colored
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.
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
The aim of this experiment is to study autonomic processes by replicating the previously carried out Stroop effect by using numbers. A number of 180 random participants aged in between 18-89 were recruited to participate in this experiment. Participants were presented with a stroop experiment task sheet which consists of three parts which was the control, congruent and incongruent conditions. Time was taken and recorded for each participant to say out the number of stars in the control condition and to say out the number of numbers in the congruent and incongruent conditions. Based on the results, participants took a considerably longer time to say the number of number in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition.
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.
Controlled Vs Automatic processes: A modified version of a Stroop experiment using colour-associated and colour neutral words.
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
Loosli, Rahm, Unterrainer, Weiller, and Kaller (2013) conducted a study investigating life span development of item-specific proactive interference in individual’s working memory. Postle, Brush, and Nick (2004) found that proactive interference is previous important information in working memory (as cited in Loosli et al., 2013). Baddeley (1997) found that working memory is the power to maintain information for a short period of time and manipulate the information (as cited in Loosli et al., 2013). There are two types of proactive interference; the first one being item-nonspecific proactive interference. This type is when someone remembers information while performing another task that is no longer relevant to the current task they are performing.
We often tend to live our everyday lives without paying much attention to the factors that contribute to our every movement and function. Have you ever wondered what triggers your brain to complete simple tasks, such as reading road signs, or knowing how to follow a guided set of instructions? John Ridley Stroop became specifically interested in the part of the brain that measures selective attention [1]. Oftentimes, in order to maintain balance, the brain will carry out the action that is most common and easy and will stop the action that will take more work and effort. The process explained in the previous sentence is known as inhibition, and it regularly occurs in our minds [2]. Stroop gave participants a list of colors, such as green,
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 Stroop effect: how your brain reacts to conflicting information You can’t always believe what you see. You may have learned your colors before you learned how to read, but what happens when there is conflict between both color recognition and word recognition? The Stroop effect uses the conflict between words and colors to show, how your brain reacts to the conflicting information between the two. By psychologist definition the Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. The Stroop effect was originally written about by a man named John Ridley Stroop in the 1930’s.
Psychology has been strategically split into three levels of analysis, biological, cognitive, sociocultural. Each one specific to different process in our brain and its functions. The brain remains a mystery but throughout history researchers big and small have taken it into their own hands to help us understand how it works. For this internal assessment a study pertaining to the cognitive level of analysis will be replicated. The study was originally conducted by J. Ridley Stroop in 1935 under the name : Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions. The same study is commonly known as the Stroop Effect. The aim of this study was to identify to what extent does conflicting stimuli affect verbal serial recognition. For the purposes of
This experiment was used to test the brain’s ability of speed to recall words and colors. The frontal lobe in the human brain is associated with word meaning. This original experiment was tested on several college undergraduates both males and females, while our experiment used high school students both male and females. Our experiment did support our hypothesis that the brain’s ability to recognize words and colors take a longer time to perceive. As predicted stimulus #3 was difficult for the participants to perform. The brain will send a completely different signal than the one word the participant believed it was going to be. Overall, our experiment expressed the idea that the selective attention theory is correct because the participants needed more time recall the color than the word itself for stimulus #3. Before we conducted 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.