Stroop Effect Essay
I. INTRODUCTION
The Stroop effect (sometimes called the Stroop test) is an outcome of our mental (attentional) vitality and flexibility. The effect is related to the ability of most people to read words more quickly and automatically than they can name colors. John Ridley Stroop first reported this effect in his Ph.D. dissertation published in 1935. Current research on the Stroop effect emphasizes the interference that automatic processing of words has on the more mentally effortful task of just naming the ink color. The task of making an appropriate response - when given two conflicting signals - has tentatively been located in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate. This is a region that lies between the right and left halves …show more content…
of the frontal portion of the brain. It is involved in a wide range of cognitive processes. Several studies have been published which were not primarily studies of interference, but which employed materials that were similar in nature to those employed in this research, and which are concerned with why it takes more time to name colors than to read color names. Several of these studies have been reviewed by Telford (1930) and by Ligon (1932).
The difference in time for naming colors and reading color names has been variously explained. Cattell (1886) and Lund (1927) have attributed the difference to 'practice.' Woodworth and Wells (1911, p. 52) have suggested that, "The real mechanism here may very well be the mutual interference of the five names, all of which, from immediately preceding use, are 'on the tip of the tongue,' all are equally ready and likely to get in one another's way." Brown (1915, p. 51) concluded "that the difference in speed between color naming and word reading does not depend upon practice" but that (p. 34) "the association process in naming simple objects like colors is radically different from the association process in reading printed words." Garrett and Lemmon (1924, p. 438) have accounted for their findings in these words, "Hence it seems reasonable to say that interferences which arise in naming colors are due not so much to an equal readiness of the color names as to an equal readiness of the colorrecognitive processes. Another factor present in interference is very probably the present strength of the associations between colors and their names, already determined by past use." Peterson (1918 and 1925) has attributed the difference to the fact that, "One particular response habit has become associated with each word while in the case of colors themselves a variety of response tendencies have developed." (1925, p. 281.) As pointed out by Telford (1930), the results published by Peterson (1925, p. 281) and also published by Lund (1927, p. 425) confirm Peterson's interpretation.
Ligon (1932) has published results of a 'genetic study' of naming colors and reading color names in which he used 638 subjects from school grades 1 to 9 inclusive. In the light of his results he found all former explanations untenable (He included no examination of or reference to Peterson's data and interpretation.) and proceeded to set up a new hypothesis based upon a three factor theory, a common factor which he never definitely describes and special factors of word reading and color naming. He points out that the common factor is learned but the special factors are organic.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
The stroop effect describes an experiment about the time it takes to name color of printed words. When you try to name the color in which color words are printed, it takes longer when the color word is the same as the ink color.
AUTOMATICITY MODEL
The difficulty of removing the interference effect of the Stroop task has led some researchers to claim that the brain is wired to recognize words without effort. This explanation is called the "automatic word recognition hypothesis" (or automaticity hypothesis), and it is so widely accepted that it is often given, in psychology textbooks, as the only answer to the Stroop effect. According to this theory, reading is an automatic process, which cannot be turned off. In other words, people see the meaning or words without much effort or consciousness. On the other hand, naming colors is not automatic. It requires more effort than reading, thus creating interference in the Stroop task.
A SPEED OF PROCESSING MODEL/ SPEED PROCESSING THEORY
The "Speed of Processing" hypothesis suggests that word processing is much faster than color processing. Thus, in a situation of incongruency between words and colors, when the task is to report the color, the word information arrives at the decision process stage earlier than the color information and results in processing confusion. On the other hand, when the task is to report the word, because the color information lags behind the word information, a decision can be made before the conflicting color information arrives.
SELECTIVE ATTENTION THEORY
According to this theory, naming the actual color of the words requires much more attention that simply reading the text.
STROOP INTERFERENCE
The difficulty to follow the instruction to ignore the printed word and name the word’s ink color since word reading is a dominant and automatic response among skilled readers.
Problems:
1. Do males significantly perform better than females? 2. Do the 4 experimental conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic) have difference in the duration of performance of the subjects regardless of gender? 3. Is there an interaction between gender and the 4 experimental conditions?
Hypothesis:
1. Males significantly perform better than females. 2. The 4 experimental conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic) have differences in the duration of performance of the subjects regardless of gender. 3. There is no interaction between gender and the 4 experimental conditions.
II. Method Participant: Participants in this experiment consisted of 15 males and 15 females (a total of 30) undergraduate students of Saint Louis University. The selection was based on the availability of the participants between 9:30 to 11:30 in the morning. All participants went through the same four experimental conditions namely Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic. Instruments Used: The experiment presented three trial boards and actual boards. The latter were as follows namely: (1) Clean Verbal which consisted of names of colors appeared in black ink; (2) Clean Intrinsic which consisted of solid squares or patches of colors; (3) a combination of Stroop Verbal and Stroop Intrinsic which consisted of names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Each trial board consist 5 items similar to that of the actual boards. A cell phone with stopwatch was also used by the assistant experimenter to record and to measure the time in seconds the speed of each participant in each condition. The boards were placed within easy reach of the experimenter. Procedure: Initially, each participant was asked to sit comfortably and to relax. He/she was told that the experiment is very easy. Rapport was established by the experimenters. Before the actual experiment, trial boards were presented to each participant. His/her task was to read the five sample items, from top to bottom, shown to him/her. Next, the actual boards were presented by the experimenter and he/she was instructed to read what was asked from left to right. Just in case he/she commits a mistake while reading, he/she was told to just correct his/her mistake and continue reading. Prior to this, he/she was told that he/she was timed by the assistant experimenter during each condition. The timer was started once the participant was ready and the experimenter said “Start” and the board was lifted up. For the first condition which is the Clean Verbal, the participant was asked to read the name of the colors printed in black. In the second condition which is the Clean Intrinsic, each participant was asked to say the color of each solid squares or patches. The third condition which is the Stroop Verbal required the participant to read the words (color names) regardless of its colors of the ink (for example, they would have to read "blue" no matter what the color of its ink was). Lastly, in the fourth condition which is the Stroop Intrinsic, each participant were instructed to tell the colors of the color names independently of the written word (for example, if the word "green" was written in yellow, they would have to say "yellow", but not "green"). As the participants completed their task, they were thanked and assisted to go quietly out of the experimental room.
III. RESULTS: Anova: Factorial Design | | | | | | | | | SUMMARY | CV | CL | SV | SI | Total | males | | | | | | Count | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 60 | Sum | 115.19 | 143.97 | 125.48 | 253.55 | 638.19 | Average | 7.679333 | 9.598 | 8.365333 | 16.90333 | 10.6365 | Variance | 1.03725 | 2.848646 | 3.502784 | 17.36627 | 19.66763 | | | | | | | females | | | | | | Count | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 60 | Sum | 117.78 | 160.89 | 128.49 | 232.44 | 639.6 | Average | 7.852 | 10.726 | 8.566 | 15.496 | 10.66 | Variance | 1.15836 | 4.115511 | 2.22794 | 8.165169 | 12.78393 | | | | | | | Total | | | | | | Count | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | | Sum | 232.97 | 304.86 | 253.97 | 485.99 | | Average | 7.765667 | 10.162 | 8.465667 | 16.19967 | | Variance | 1.06766 | 3.691072 | 2.77697 | 12.83774 | |
ANOVA | | | | | | | | | Source of Variation | SS | df | MS | F | P-value | F crit | | | Sample | 0.016568 | 1 | 0.016568 | 0.003279 | 0.954439 | 3.925834 | gender | NS | Columns | 1323.829 | 3 | 441.2762 | 87.33403 | 3.38E-29 | 2.685643 | condition | S | Interaction | 24.90632 | 3 | 8.302107 | 1.64309 | 0.183485 | 2.685643 | | NS | Within | 565.907 | 112 | 5.052741 | | | | | | Total | 1914.659 | 119 | | | | | | |
Variable A: Gender The overall Mean of the duration for males is42. 546 and 42.64 for the females. The corresponding f value which is 0.003279 is not significant. This means that there is no significant difference in duration between males and females.
We conclude that the factor gender does not affect the duration.
Variable B: Four Conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal)
The obtained f value of 87.33 is significant. We therefore conclude that there is a significant difference among the duration of the different conditions. In order to situate the significant difference, we pair off the means by using the Tukey method: MS within | 0.168425 | K=4 | N=120 | √MS within/n | 0.410396 | df = 4/116 ≈ 4/120 | α0.05=3.68 | X1-X2 | -2.39633 | -5.83908 | S | X1-X3 | -0.7 | -1.70567 | NS | X1-X4 | -8.434 | -20.5509 | S | X2-X3 | 1.696333 | 4.133408 | S | X2-X4 | -6.03767 | -14.7118 | S | X3-X4 | -7.734 | -18.8452 | S |
X1 | CV | 7.77 | | X3 | SV | 8.47 | |
X2 | CI | 10.16 | |
X4 | SI | 16.2 | |
Among the different conditions, the duration of clean verbal (X=7.77) and the Stroop verbal (X = 8.47) are not significantly different from each other and both have the shortest duration time. The clean intrinsic (X = 10.16) on the other hand, has longer duration time compared to clean verbal and Stroop verbal but has shorter duration time than Stroop intrinsic (X = 16.2) which has the longest duration time of all conditions.
Variable A x B: The obtained f value of 1.63 is not significant at @ .05. There is therefore no significant influence of the interaction of these two variables on the duration time of each task.
V.DISCUSSION:
The researchers wanted to find out whether the subjects could recognize the words automatically and if there is a problem in the determination of colors in the strop test. After computing the results by using the ANOVA: Two factor with replication, there is a significant difference among the four conditions presented, the CLEAN VERBAL, CLEAN INTRINSIC, STROOP VERBAL, STROOP INTRINSIC. Since it ]is significant, the researchers performed the tukey method. The subjects were fastest in clean verbal and stroop verbal. In clean verbal the subjects were task to read the colors in blank ink while stroop intrinsic wherein the subjects read the word in a different colors. They performed longer in clean intrinsic where they identified the color patches and the longest is the stroop intrinsic which is stating the color of the printed words in incongruent colors. Since word reading is dominant and automatic response among skilled readers, it turns out to be difficult to follow the instructions to ignore the printed word and name the word’s ink color which is caused by the stroop interference. Given that college students are used to reading than in naming colors. On the other hand because of focused attention, they had a difficult time in the stroop task since in the subject attends to one aspect of a stimulus while ignoring all other parts, all conflicting information disturbs the attention of the subject. It also proves that people perform this task relatively quickly for sympbols but are particularly slowed for words that are incongruent.
The last problem sought to find out if there is a gender difference in a stroop task. The findings were that there is no significant differences between males and females in the time consumed in clean verbal, clean intrinsic, stroop verbal, stroop intrinsic.
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS:
A practical application of this experiment would be about dissociation, selective attention and stimulus blocking. The ability to recognize one stimulus from the other especially if it falls under the same modality is a basic life instinct which is essential for survival.
Having a shorter duration of identifying/differentiating competing stimulus is beneficial for multi-tasking.
Knowing which is which in our daily activities will make our activities faster and easier. Another application of this experiment would be on marketing, wherein customers are usually easily deceived by color of products, therefore they just buy products of the same color as what they are using but what they don’t know is that it is a different product because they didn’t read the label. That’s why advertising companies shpuld be careful in making billboards and ads because of this stroop effect. Stroop test can also be made to measure the ff: Verbal processing, visual processing, attention/vigilance, impulsivity and prefontal cortex/frontal lobe functioning. These skills are used in the real world in planning, organization, maintaining attention, understanding consequences, speaking and understanding speech, and making sense of what you see.
According to a study by Malek A. et.al.on“The Standardization of Victoria StroopColor-Word Test among Iranian Bilingual Adolescents.” Based on their findings, age but not gender is influential on performance of Stroop test. For future experiments we recommend that future researchers look into factors on age and number of committed errors for more accurate
results.
V. REFERENCES: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/ http://www.snre.umich.edu/eplab/demos/st0/stroopdesc.html http://psychology.about.com/library/bl-stroopeffect.htm http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/teaching/teaching2.htm http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html Posner, M. I. (1980) ORIENTING OF ATTENTION. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 32(FEB): 3–25.
VI. APPENDICES (Graph, Tables, Computations, Record Sheets) VII. MALES | Clean Verbal | Clean Intrinsic | Stroop Verbal | Stroop Intrinsic | 1 | 6.41 | 8.3 | 13.86 | 15.98 | 2 | 7.95 | 7.56 | 6.33 | 11.66 | 3 | 7.84 | 9.27 | 9.32 | 13.14 | 4 | 6.91 | 9.03 | 8.03 | 16.54 | 5 | 8.23 | 10.57 | 9.09 | 25.48 | 6 | 9.26 | 10.98 | 9.16 | 14.33 | 7 | 7.48 | 9.83 | 7.34 | 14.66 | 8 | 7.69 | 9.62 | 8.09 | 20.45 | 9 | 8.17 | 9.27 | 8.31 | 15.43 | 10 | 7.32 | 9.5 | 7.92 | 16.15 | 11 | 9.95 | 14.32 | 9.75 | 25.3 | 12 | 6.98 | 10.82 | 7.81 | 20.05 | 13 | 6.22 | 8.12 | 6.27 | 14.8 | 14 | 8.12 | 9.31 | 7.93 | 16.55 | 15 | 6.66 | 7.47 | 6.27 | 13.03 |
Females | Clean Verbal | Clean Intrinsic | Stroop Verbal | Stroop Intrinsic | 1 | 7.75 | 8.16 | 8.09 | 12.25 | 2 | 7.52 | 10.62 | 8.95 | 14.35 | 3 | 8.12 | 16.58 | 8.9 | 20.37 | 4 | 7.83 | 11.38 | 8.23 | 17.05 | 5 | 6.96 | 9.14 | 8.11 | 19.62 | 6 | 10.05 | 11.37 | 10.13 | 16.97 | 7 | 7.81 | 9.51 | 8.41 | 14.25 | 8 | 8.71 | 10.15 | 8.83 | 13.25 | 9 | 5.92 | 8.72 | 6.3 | 10.02 | 10 | 7.67 | 9.8 | 6.78 | 12.43 | 11 | 9.67 | 12.67 | 12.74 | 15.52 | 12 | 7.81 | 9.8 | 8.87 | 14.42 | 13 | 6.56 | 9.9 | 7.76 | 17.14 | 14 | 8.36 | 11.4 | 8.93 | 17.31 | 15 | 7.04 | 11.69 | 7.46 | 17.49 |
The Stroop effect (sometimes called the Stroop test) is an outcome of our mental (attentional) vitality and flexibility. The effect is related to the ability of most people to read words more quickly and automatically than they can name colors. John Ridley Stroop first reported this effect in his Ph.D. dissertation published in 1935. Current research on the Stroop effect emphasizes the interference that automatic processing of words has on the more mentally effortful task of just naming the ink color. The task of making an appropriate response - when given two conflicting signals - has tentatively been located in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate. This is a region that lies between the right and left halves …show more content…
of the frontal portion of the brain. It is involved in a wide range of cognitive processes. Several studies have been published which were not primarily studies of interference, but which employed materials that were similar in nature to those employed in this research, and which are concerned with why it takes more time to name colors than to read color names. Several of these studies have been reviewed by Telford (1930) and by Ligon (1932).
The difference in time for naming colors and reading color names has been variously explained. Cattell (1886) and Lund (1927) have attributed the difference to 'practice.' Woodworth and Wells (1911, p. 52) have suggested that, "The real mechanism here may very well be the mutual interference of the five names, all of which, from immediately preceding use, are 'on the tip of the tongue,' all are equally ready and likely to get in one another's way." Brown (1915, p. 51) concluded "that the difference in speed between color naming and word reading does not depend upon practice" but that (p. 34) "the association process in naming simple objects like colors is radically different from the association process in reading printed words." Garrett and Lemmon (1924, p. 438) have accounted for their findings in these words, "Hence it seems reasonable to say that interferences which arise in naming colors are due not so much to an equal readiness of the color names as to an equal readiness of the colorrecognitive processes. Another factor present in interference is very probably the present strength of the associations between colors and their names, already determined by past use." Peterson (1918 and 1925) has attributed the difference to the fact that, "One particular response habit has become associated with each word while in the case of colors themselves a variety of response tendencies have developed." (1925, p. 281.) As pointed out by Telford (1930), the results published by Peterson (1925, p. 281) and also published by Lund (1927, p. 425) confirm Peterson's interpretation.
Ligon (1932) has published results of a 'genetic study' of naming colors and reading color names in which he used 638 subjects from school grades 1 to 9 inclusive. In the light of his results he found all former explanations untenable (He included no examination of or reference to Peterson's data and interpretation.) and proceeded to set up a new hypothesis based upon a three factor theory, a common factor which he never definitely describes and special factors of word reading and color naming. He points out that the common factor is learned but the special factors are organic.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
The stroop effect describes an experiment about the time it takes to name color of printed words. When you try to name the color in which color words are printed, it takes longer when the color word is the same as the ink color.
AUTOMATICITY MODEL
The difficulty of removing the interference effect of the Stroop task has led some researchers to claim that the brain is wired to recognize words without effort. This explanation is called the "automatic word recognition hypothesis" (or automaticity hypothesis), and it is so widely accepted that it is often given, in psychology textbooks, as the only answer to the Stroop effect. According to this theory, reading is an automatic process, which cannot be turned off. In other words, people see the meaning or words without much effort or consciousness. On the other hand, naming colors is not automatic. It requires more effort than reading, thus creating interference in the Stroop task.
A SPEED OF PROCESSING MODEL/ SPEED PROCESSING THEORY
The "Speed of Processing" hypothesis suggests that word processing is much faster than color processing. Thus, in a situation of incongruency between words and colors, when the task is to report the color, the word information arrives at the decision process stage earlier than the color information and results in processing confusion. On the other hand, when the task is to report the word, because the color information lags behind the word information, a decision can be made before the conflicting color information arrives.
SELECTIVE ATTENTION THEORY
According to this theory, naming the actual color of the words requires much more attention that simply reading the text.
STROOP INTERFERENCE
The difficulty to follow the instruction to ignore the printed word and name the word’s ink color since word reading is a dominant and automatic response among skilled readers.
Problems:
1. Do males significantly perform better than females? 2. Do the 4 experimental conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic) have difference in the duration of performance of the subjects regardless of gender? 3. Is there an interaction between gender and the 4 experimental conditions?
Hypothesis:
1. Males significantly perform better than females. 2. The 4 experimental conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic) have differences in the duration of performance of the subjects regardless of gender. 3. There is no interaction between gender and the 4 experimental conditions.
II. Method Participant: Participants in this experiment consisted of 15 males and 15 females (a total of 30) undergraduate students of Saint Louis University. The selection was based on the availability of the participants between 9:30 to 11:30 in the morning. All participants went through the same four experimental conditions namely Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal, and Stroop Intrinsic. Instruments Used: The experiment presented three trial boards and actual boards. The latter were as follows namely: (1) Clean Verbal which consisted of names of colors appeared in black ink; (2) Clean Intrinsic which consisted of solid squares or patches of colors; (3) a combination of Stroop Verbal and Stroop Intrinsic which consisted of names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Each trial board consist 5 items similar to that of the actual boards. A cell phone with stopwatch was also used by the assistant experimenter to record and to measure the time in seconds the speed of each participant in each condition. The boards were placed within easy reach of the experimenter. Procedure: Initially, each participant was asked to sit comfortably and to relax. He/she was told that the experiment is very easy. Rapport was established by the experimenters. Before the actual experiment, trial boards were presented to each participant. His/her task was to read the five sample items, from top to bottom, shown to him/her. Next, the actual boards were presented by the experimenter and he/she was instructed to read what was asked from left to right. Just in case he/she commits a mistake while reading, he/she was told to just correct his/her mistake and continue reading. Prior to this, he/she was told that he/she was timed by the assistant experimenter during each condition. The timer was started once the participant was ready and the experimenter said “Start” and the board was lifted up. For the first condition which is the Clean Verbal, the participant was asked to read the name of the colors printed in black. In the second condition which is the Clean Intrinsic, each participant was asked to say the color of each solid squares or patches. The third condition which is the Stroop Verbal required the participant to read the words (color names) regardless of its colors of the ink (for example, they would have to read "blue" no matter what the color of its ink was). Lastly, in the fourth condition which is the Stroop Intrinsic, each participant were instructed to tell the colors of the color names independently of the written word (for example, if the word "green" was written in yellow, they would have to say "yellow", but not "green"). As the participants completed their task, they were thanked and assisted to go quietly out of the experimental room.
III. RESULTS: Anova: Factorial Design | | | | | | | | | SUMMARY | CV | CL | SV | SI | Total | males | | | | | | Count | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 60 | Sum | 115.19 | 143.97 | 125.48 | 253.55 | 638.19 | Average | 7.679333 | 9.598 | 8.365333 | 16.90333 | 10.6365 | Variance | 1.03725 | 2.848646 | 3.502784 | 17.36627 | 19.66763 | | | | | | | females | | | | | | Count | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 60 | Sum | 117.78 | 160.89 | 128.49 | 232.44 | 639.6 | Average | 7.852 | 10.726 | 8.566 | 15.496 | 10.66 | Variance | 1.15836 | 4.115511 | 2.22794 | 8.165169 | 12.78393 | | | | | | | Total | | | | | | Count | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | | Sum | 232.97 | 304.86 | 253.97 | 485.99 | | Average | 7.765667 | 10.162 | 8.465667 | 16.19967 | | Variance | 1.06766 | 3.691072 | 2.77697 | 12.83774 | |
ANOVA | | | | | | | | | Source of Variation | SS | df | MS | F | P-value | F crit | | | Sample | 0.016568 | 1 | 0.016568 | 0.003279 | 0.954439 | 3.925834 | gender | NS | Columns | 1323.829 | 3 | 441.2762 | 87.33403 | 3.38E-29 | 2.685643 | condition | S | Interaction | 24.90632 | 3 | 8.302107 | 1.64309 | 0.183485 | 2.685643 | | NS | Within | 565.907 | 112 | 5.052741 | | | | | | Total | 1914.659 | 119 | | | | | | |
Variable A: Gender The overall Mean of the duration for males is42. 546 and 42.64 for the females. The corresponding f value which is 0.003279 is not significant. This means that there is no significant difference in duration between males and females.
We conclude that the factor gender does not affect the duration.
Variable B: Four Conditions (Clean Verbal, Clean Intrinsic, Stroop Intrinsic, Stroop Verbal)
The obtained f value of 87.33 is significant. We therefore conclude that there is a significant difference among the duration of the different conditions. In order to situate the significant difference, we pair off the means by using the Tukey method: MS within | 0.168425 | K=4 | N=120 | √MS within/n | 0.410396 | df = 4/116 ≈ 4/120 | α0.05=3.68 | X1-X2 | -2.39633 | -5.83908 | S | X1-X3 | -0.7 | -1.70567 | NS | X1-X4 | -8.434 | -20.5509 | S | X2-X3 | 1.696333 | 4.133408 | S | X2-X4 | -6.03767 | -14.7118 | S | X3-X4 | -7.734 | -18.8452 | S |
X1 | CV | 7.77 | | X3 | SV | 8.47 | |
X2 | CI | 10.16 | |
X4 | SI | 16.2 | |
Among the different conditions, the duration of clean verbal (X=7.77) and the Stroop verbal (X = 8.47) are not significantly different from each other and both have the shortest duration time. The clean intrinsic (X = 10.16) on the other hand, has longer duration time compared to clean verbal and Stroop verbal but has shorter duration time than Stroop intrinsic (X = 16.2) which has the longest duration time of all conditions.
Variable A x B: The obtained f value of 1.63 is not significant at @ .05. There is therefore no significant influence of the interaction of these two variables on the duration time of each task.
V.DISCUSSION:
The researchers wanted to find out whether the subjects could recognize the words automatically and if there is a problem in the determination of colors in the strop test. After computing the results by using the ANOVA: Two factor with replication, there is a significant difference among the four conditions presented, the CLEAN VERBAL, CLEAN INTRINSIC, STROOP VERBAL, STROOP INTRINSIC. Since it ]is significant, the researchers performed the tukey method. The subjects were fastest in clean verbal and stroop verbal. In clean verbal the subjects were task to read the colors in blank ink while stroop intrinsic wherein the subjects read the word in a different colors. They performed longer in clean intrinsic where they identified the color patches and the longest is the stroop intrinsic which is stating the color of the printed words in incongruent colors. Since word reading is dominant and automatic response among skilled readers, it turns out to be difficult to follow the instructions to ignore the printed word and name the word’s ink color which is caused by the stroop interference. Given that college students are used to reading than in naming colors. On the other hand because of focused attention, they had a difficult time in the stroop task since in the subject attends to one aspect of a stimulus while ignoring all other parts, all conflicting information disturbs the attention of the subject. It also proves that people perform this task relatively quickly for sympbols but are particularly slowed for words that are incongruent.
The last problem sought to find out if there is a gender difference in a stroop task. The findings were that there is no significant differences between males and females in the time consumed in clean verbal, clean intrinsic, stroop verbal, stroop intrinsic.
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS:
A practical application of this experiment would be about dissociation, selective attention and stimulus blocking. The ability to recognize one stimulus from the other especially if it falls under the same modality is a basic life instinct which is essential for survival.
Having a shorter duration of identifying/differentiating competing stimulus is beneficial for multi-tasking.
Knowing which is which in our daily activities will make our activities faster and easier. Another application of this experiment would be on marketing, wherein customers are usually easily deceived by color of products, therefore they just buy products of the same color as what they are using but what they don’t know is that it is a different product because they didn’t read the label. That’s why advertising companies shpuld be careful in making billboards and ads because of this stroop effect. Stroop test can also be made to measure the ff: Verbal processing, visual processing, attention/vigilance, impulsivity and prefontal cortex/frontal lobe functioning. These skills are used in the real world in planning, organization, maintaining attention, understanding consequences, speaking and understanding speech, and making sense of what you see.
According to a study by Malek A. et.al.on“The Standardization of Victoria StroopColor-Word Test among Iranian Bilingual Adolescents.” Based on their findings, age but not gender is influential on performance of Stroop test. For future experiments we recommend that future researchers look into factors on age and number of committed errors for more accurate
results.
V. REFERENCES: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/ http://www.snre.umich.edu/eplab/demos/st0/stroopdesc.html http://psychology.about.com/library/bl-stroopeffect.htm http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/teaching/teaching2.htm http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html Posner, M. I. (1980) ORIENTING OF ATTENTION. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 32(FEB): 3–25.
VI. APPENDICES (Graph, Tables, Computations, Record Sheets) VII. MALES | Clean Verbal | Clean Intrinsic | Stroop Verbal | Stroop Intrinsic | 1 | 6.41 | 8.3 | 13.86 | 15.98 | 2 | 7.95 | 7.56 | 6.33 | 11.66 | 3 | 7.84 | 9.27 | 9.32 | 13.14 | 4 | 6.91 | 9.03 | 8.03 | 16.54 | 5 | 8.23 | 10.57 | 9.09 | 25.48 | 6 | 9.26 | 10.98 | 9.16 | 14.33 | 7 | 7.48 | 9.83 | 7.34 | 14.66 | 8 | 7.69 | 9.62 | 8.09 | 20.45 | 9 | 8.17 | 9.27 | 8.31 | 15.43 | 10 | 7.32 | 9.5 | 7.92 | 16.15 | 11 | 9.95 | 14.32 | 9.75 | 25.3 | 12 | 6.98 | 10.82 | 7.81 | 20.05 | 13 | 6.22 | 8.12 | 6.27 | 14.8 | 14 | 8.12 | 9.31 | 7.93 | 16.55 | 15 | 6.66 | 7.47 | 6.27 | 13.03 |
Females | Clean Verbal | Clean Intrinsic | Stroop Verbal | Stroop Intrinsic | 1 | 7.75 | 8.16 | 8.09 | 12.25 | 2 | 7.52 | 10.62 | 8.95 | 14.35 | 3 | 8.12 | 16.58 | 8.9 | 20.37 | 4 | 7.83 | 11.38 | 8.23 | 17.05 | 5 | 6.96 | 9.14 | 8.11 | 19.62 | 6 | 10.05 | 11.37 | 10.13 | 16.97 | 7 | 7.81 | 9.51 | 8.41 | 14.25 | 8 | 8.71 | 10.15 | 8.83 | 13.25 | 9 | 5.92 | 8.72 | 6.3 | 10.02 | 10 | 7.67 | 9.8 | 6.78 | 12.43 | 11 | 9.67 | 12.67 | 12.74 | 15.52 | 12 | 7.81 | 9.8 | 8.87 | 14.42 | 13 | 6.56 | 9.9 | 7.76 | 17.14 | 14 | 8.36 | 11.4 | 8.93 | 17.31 | 15 | 7.04 | 11.69 | 7.46 | 17.49 |