...Running head: EVALUATING SOME POSSIBLE Evaluating some possible Causes of the Stroop Effect Matt Sheehan, M.S. Carolyn Rude-Parkins, Ph.D. University of Louisville November, 2007 Introduction The words blue, green, and yellow are words known to all as colors. If one of these color words is written in an ink color differing from the color it represents an individual spends more time to name that ink color than the ink color of neutral words. This is known as the Stroop effect. Studying this gives insight into the human mind. It can show how we handle interference across a number of different situations or how our automatic processes interact with and affect our controlled processes. The cause of the Stroop effect has been widely debated and researched over the years. Some researchers believe the cause is due to the fact that reading is such a well learned or even over learned process that it becomes automatic. When asked to identify ink colors of words reading the word causes distraction because reading is done much more often than naming ink colors. But where is the exact interference occurring in this process and why? It has been suggested that the interference occurs at the output or response stage as an individual struggles to express the correct color word from alternatives. Others believe the interference happens during encoding as an individual analyzes the word and is distracted from ink color. Still others would say it happens...
Words: 1398 - Pages: 6
...Each day we take part in limitless activities that happen naturally. Numerous behaviors can become automatized such as, writing, reading, bicycling, walking, driving, and so forth, comprehending the natural process of the causes of automatic processes gives us insight into how we simultaneously receive and perceive information. The Stroop Paradigm is a classic cognitive psychological experiment performed by John Ridley Stroop (Stroop, 1935) that explores the interference in reading automaticity. In the experiment, participants are asked to read out words of the color ink that words are printed in, with the words also implying a different color. In the condition in which the color of the word and the word are the same participants responded...
Words: 804 - Pages: 4
...Abstract: The stroop effect can be reduced through stroop dilution and this is achieved through the use of neutral words. This paper focuses on a study undertaken on a sample where n = 30 and the participants were exposed to three tests, one test included testing time taken to read colour words which had the same colour as the word stated, the second test was to record the time taken to read words colour words that had different colours as the colour word stated and the third and final test was to test the time taken for the individual to read neutral words containing different colours. The study was undertaken to determine whether there was a reduction in the stroop effect which was to be based on the time taken to accomplish the three tasks, it was found out that indeed the stroop effect reduced ands this was noted due to the reduction in the time taken in reading the third task. Introduction: The stroop effect is viewed as the interference when undertaking a task; this effect was first coined by Ridley Stroop in 1935. his findings were that there was usually a delay when naming a colour name which is written in a different colour, example writing the word RED in colour red would result into much easier to read than if RED is written in blue, this is due to the stroop effect. Some theorists have come up with explanation of this effect and this includes the speed to process theory and the selective attention theory. According to the speed of process theory the stroop effect is...
Words: 2139 - Pages: 9
...ABSTRACT The aim of the present experiment was to assess attention and executive functioning, using Color-Trail Test and Behavioral Regulation index of Executive Functioning Adult version. For this purpose, two subjects-one young adult (female) and one female elderly (female) were taken of the age 22 years and 77 years respectively. In the first phase BRIEF-A self report form was administered to both subjects followed by CTT. The result showed that the performance of the elderly confirmed results from the BRIEF-A self- report, that there was a significant impairment in executive functions and divided attention in the elderly’s performance on the two tests as compared to the young adult whose abilities seem intact. INTRODUCTION The cerebral cortex can be divided into four sections, which are known as lobes, named for the bones of the skull that cover them. The frontal lobe refers to the anterior portion of the cerebral cortex and includes everything in front of the central sulcus. The frontal lobe contains most of the dopamine-sensitive neurons in the cerebral cortex. The dopamine system is associated with reward, attention, short-term memory tasks, planning, and drive. Dopamine tends to limit and select sensory information arriving from the thalamus to the fore-brain. Recent advances have uncovered important roles for the frontal lobes in a multitude of cognitive processes, such as executive function, attention, memory, and language. The importance of the frontal lobes in...
Words: 7534 - Pages: 31
...Automatization and the Stroop Effect Abstract, we intend to investigate the effects of the stroop effect and the validity of these findings. We anticipated that it would take longer for participants to perform the second task more than the first task. This is what occurred in the experiment. There were 20 people picked using opportunity Sampling used in this experiment and we found that it took longer for people to decipher the colour when it was not linked to the word. When a behaviour or skill seems to no longer require direct interaction, cognitive psychologists say it is automatized. Many behaviours can become automatized: typing, reading, writing to name just a few. To explore properties of automatized behaviours cognitive psychologists often put observers in a situation where an automatized response is in conflict with the desired behaviour. This allows researchers to test the behind-the-scenes properties of automatized behaviours by noting their influence on more easily measured behaviours. This demonstration explores a well-known example of this type of influence, the Stroop effect. Stroop (1935) noted that observers were slower to properly identify the colour of ink when the ink was used to produce colour names different from the ink. That is, observers were slower to identify red ink when it spelled the word blue. This is an interesting finding because observers are told to not pay any attention to the word names and simply report the colour of the ink. However, this...
Words: 1169 - Pages: 5
...with relevance of Stroop Effect, which allowed scientist to examine differences in gender, age, as well as education on the intervention effect. The METACARD software was used to explore the effect of congruent and incongruent stimuli on the reaction time of participant’s performance. The data is from 46 participants are presented here. Results revealed that when word and color match, participants have faster responses and less errors. When word and color do not match, participants have slower responses and make more errors. The Stroop effect demonstrates the dynamic of selective attention, illustrates the nature of automatic processing, and shows that people can improve their selective attention. Keywords: selective attention, interaction, stroop effect, automatic processing. Introduction The phenomenon of interference takes a large place in experimental psychology and demands our attention. Many psychologist investigate inhibiting effects nowadays. However, the psychologists began to study interference prior to 1890. Many experiments were conducted to investigate color naming and word reading. The Stroop Effect was discovered by John Ridley Stroop. The Stroop task experiment was done and first reported in scientist’s Ph.D. dissertation that was published in 1925. In the colorword, Stroop presented (Stroop, 1935) the participants with words printed in color and were asked to identify the color of the ink while ignoring the meaning of the word. Stroop...
Words: 2131 - Pages: 9
...Psychological report on the Stroop effect By Thomas Silk Abstract The aim of this experiment is to study autonomic processes by replicating the previously carried out Stroop effect by using numbers. My hypothesis was that participants will be slower to properly identify the colour of ink when the ink used to produce colour names different from the ink. That is, observers were slower to identify red ink when it spelled the word blue. A number of 20 random participants aged in between 17-18 were recruited to participate in this experiment. Participants were presented with one condition for 10 participants and a second for the other 10.The first condition had the words of colours and were printed in a different colour ink, and the second condition the words were printed in the corresponding colour. 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. This corresponds to the earlier research carried out by Stroop. Therefore, it can be said that the powerfully autonomic nature of reading words is as same as reading numbers, as it is such a well-learned automatic activity it does interfere with the task. Introduction When you first learned to tie shoelaces you needed to carefully think through each step of the process. Now, you probably do not even seem to think about the steps, but simply initiate a series of movements that seem to proceed without any further influence. When a...
Words: 3225 - Pages: 13
...Gabriela Casas Cognitive Psychology 3319 February 19, 2016 Target Article: Embodied Cognition: Davioli, C. C., Du, F., Montana, J., Garverick, S., & Abrams, R. A. (2010). When meaning matters, look but don’t touch: The effects of posture on reading. Memory & Cognition, 38(5), 555-562. 1. Research Question(s) Reading is an essential part of life and the with internet, humans have access to unlimited quantities of reading material. Much of the reading that we do occurs near the hands whether we read documents electronically or whether read via hard copies. There are individual functional preferences in consuming reading material, and there may also be advantages and disadvantages associated with these preferences, which may or may not in turn correlate to the perceived affect how much material is actually absorbed. Previous research has revealed that spatial processing is essential for successful reading, and is enhanced near the hands. Another critical aspect pertaining to reading involves semantic processing, which is related with vocabulary, knowledge, understanding of what a word means, and how to use words and meaning in context. Several studies have posed that hand actions affect what we see which may also contribute to language acquisition, comprehension, and communication. Research also reveals a direct manner in which visual processing is affected in relation to the spacing around the hands. The effect that hands have on our locus of visual...
Words: 2007 - Pages: 9
...Academic procrastination in college students: The role of self-reported executive function Procrastination is the intentional delay of due tasks. The term is a known phenomenon in a college setting so I decided it would be beneficial to examine an experiment that evaluated how procrastination hurts different aspects of a college student’s life. The experiment I found was by Laura A. Rabin, Joshua Fogel and Katherine E. Nutter- Upham and they hypothesized that procrastination can negatively impact learning, achievement, academic self-efficiency and quality of life and that understanding the factors that produce and maintain this behavior will improve things overall. In the experiment, 212 college students age 30 and below were asked to fill out a 20-item questionnaire that examines behavior tendencies to delay the start of completion of everyday tasks. They rate various statements on a five point scale (1 = extremely uncharacteristic; 5 = extremely characteristic). An example of this would be “I often find myself performing tasks that I had intended to do days before” or “I usually start an assignment shortly after it is assigned.” After doing that, participants rated the frequency of 75 problematic behaviors over the past month on a three point scale (1 = never; 2 = sometimes; 3 = often). A higher score indicated a greater degree of executive dysfunction. Then finally they filled out something that measured their behavioral regulation or the ability to not act on an impulse...
Words: 543 - Pages: 3
...Title: Synaesthesia – a convincing example of a genuine effect in psychology. Synaesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one modularity leads to unusual activation of different modularity. According to Simner (2007) the most common synaesthesias (ca. 88%) are induced by linguistically related stimuli such as words, graphemes (letters and numerals) and phonemes which trigger visual, gustatory or olfactory experience (e.g. colour, shape, taste, smell). For synaesthetes, in everyday life, reading a newspaper or listening to CD might result in seeing colours or experiencing tastes. For example (Simner, 2007), when ES hears a major sixth tone interval he tastes low-fat cream. Similarly, on hearing F-sharp he sees the colour purple. Such experience is sometimes described as a “merging of senses”. After Galton (1880) carried out his first studies on synaesthesia in the late 19th century not many scientists were investigating the phenomenon treating it instead as a curiosity. Recently, in the light of contemporary cognitive and neuroscience studies the topic of synaesthesia regained interest. Since initially, evidence indicating that synaesthesia is a real and concrete sensory phenomenon was scarce and based mainly on the anecdotal reports, scientists were interested in testing its genuineness. According to Ramachandran and Hubbard (2001) some accounts of the condition stated that it is solely product of imagination or that such experiences are nothing more than childhood...
Words: 2900 - Pages: 12
...Abstract The purpose of this experiment was to examine and test the effect of varying levels of interference on one’s response time to name errors and font colors. This experiment is a modified version of an experiment conducted by Stroop in 1935 which tested the interference between incongruent word-color combinations. Seventeen Queens College students participated in this experiment. The independent variable of the experiment was interference, and it consisted of three levels; colored “XXX” symbols, congruent color-word combinations, and incongruent color-word combinations. The dependent variable within the experiment was the mean response time it took participants to accurately choose the color that represented the word set before them. Results have revealed that when different levels of interference were administered, a change in the overall mean response-time becomes evident; as the level of interference increases, so does the number of errors and the time it takes for participants to respond . The Effect of Word and Color Interference on Response Time Interference is categorized as the presentation of two or more stimuli at a given time. Ever since the 1800’s, the effects of interference in several serial verbal reactions have been studied. These studied intended to reveal the various effects that are a result from interfering stimuli that which would not have been present if only one stimuli were present. The experiment that was conducted in class tested...
Words: 1982 - Pages: 8
...Critical Behavior In Research Princess Gunthrope University of Phoenix In research it is very important to adhere to ethical norms, these values ensure the proper and initial aim of research is carried out. The law of ethics in research prohibit researchers from falsifying information or misrepresenting information to participants. Often times “research involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness”(Sent, 2003). The critical behavior in research analysis will analyze an ethical issue raised in the article, The Causal Generalization Paradox: The Case of Treatment Outcome Research, written by Graham L. Staines. The article by Staines discusses the causal generalization paradox. The ethical issue at the heart of the article is the use of improper sampling procedures. With the vast amount of research taking place and random assignment techniques, less of a priority is being placed upon random sampling. According to Staines,2008 experimental research typically selects units, in part or in whole, at the convenience of the researcher. The researcher then makes no attempt, or often times only a limited attempt, to ensure that this sample is an accurate representation of some larger group or population. This form...
Words: 778 - Pages: 4
...Assignment Final Project Complete the Final Project Science Meets Real Life Whether you think of yourself as an up and coming scientist or not, you use science every day. You will explore how you apply different aspects of science in your daily life in a two part project. In 1,500-words (minimum), discuss the following: PART I: SCIENTIFIC METHOD Each and every day, we are faced with having to make split-second decisions, and the need to solve random problems that we encounter. To reach those decisions and work those problems out you are subconsciously using the scientific method. Apply the five steps of the Scientific Method to two situations that could occur in your everyday life. Use the scientific method in the first scenario provided below to solve the problem at hand. Please come up with a second detailed scenario on your own and follow the same steps in the scientific method to find a resolution. Scenario 1: You arrive home late at night. You walk up to the front door, unlock it, and reach in to turn on the light switch located just inside the front door. The light does not come on! Now what? Scenario 2: Develop your own detailed problem/observation and apply the scientific method to solve. PART II: WHY I CANNOT LIVE WITH/WITHOUT SCIENCE As you have seen throughout this course, science is intricately interwoven with our lives: in the food we eat, in the clothes we wear, in the computers we use for this course, science has had a hand in them all. Answer...
Words: 3450 - Pages: 14
...red hat. It hovers over the hat and then darts away. Question: Do ruby-throated hummingbirds prefer some colors more than others when visiting flowers? INTRODUCTION: There have been a number of researches and experiments done when it comes to ruby-throated hummingbirds. The ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only hummingbirds found in Northeast United States. They have great color vision, like many birds, and can see ultraviolent spectrum, unlike humans (1996, All About Birds). PREDICTION: Ruby-throated hummingbirds do prefer some colors other than others when visiting flowers. CONTROL EXPERIMENTAL METHOD: I will conduct a control experiment with 10 ruby-throated hummingbirds, using red, yellow, orange, and purple flowers. I will observe the Hummingbirds over a period of 5 weeks. I will then take pictures of the birds 10 times a day, to see which flower they prefer. RESULTS: In this experiment, I found that the ruby-throated hummingbirds prefer the red and orange flower over any other color. They flock to the red flower, by 1% over the orange. I feel that orange is a close color to red and if the hummingbirds does not get a chance to get to the red flowers, then they will flock to the next best thing. CONCLUSION: Based on this experiment, I accept this hypothesis. I do not feel that there is a need to conduct further experience. The hummingbirds flocked to the red and orange flowers, without hesitation and never giving interest to the purple or yellow...
Words: 301 - Pages: 2
...The Body Fat Loss Experiment Does taking a thermogenic fat loss supplement cause an extra decrease in body fat or is it just the extra exercise and dieting from the individual's commitment itself that causes a greater body fat reduction? Thus, making people believe the excellent results couldn't of resulted on their own without the extra help from the thermogenic? I personally believe that the thermogenic supplement can cause an extra loss in body fat if taken properly. In this small experiment, I (Sean) and Ricky were the experimental group taking a thermogenic supplement from USP labs called OxyElite Pro for 4 weeks. Well my friends Luca and Adrian were the control group who had not taken anything for 4 weeks knowingly. Luca and Adrian had both decided that they did not need the supplement in order lose the same amount of body fat as Sean and Ricky. Since Luca and Adrian were exposed to the same experimental environment, it was only appropriate to consider them as the control group. All four subjects were on the same exact diet which consisted of oatmeal in the morning, a tuna sandwich and green leaf salad for lunch, and steak with broccoli at night. As for their workouts, they were performed together consisting of the same exact routines. Every workout would begin with running for 10min then cycling for 10min and abdominal workouts at the end of every workout for 10min. Biceps and triceps on Monday, back and chest on Tuesday, calves and thighs on Wednesday, Lats/traps/shoulders...
Words: 560 - Pages: 3
