The Stroop Effect: The Perception Of Color

Color is a common everyday factor that the vast majority of people have been exposed to since birth. In fact, the prevalence of color causes most people to not even give it a second thought. Humankind has lived with it since the beginning of time, and most never stop to question what it is or why it exists, but that is exactly the matter we should be asking ourselves. What is color? How would somebody even go about trying to explain the concept of color to a person who has never experienced it? The perception of color varies from person to person, which makes it next to impossible for one to try to explain what they see so that another could understand. We want to interpret what it is that makes the color the way it is, beyond the science of the different wavelengths of light.
The system behind the perception of color is more than meets the eye. An assortment of factors affects the way living things visualize colors, some being outward forces while others have to do with the individual themself. There are
reasons why someone can recognize and effortlessly identify the color red, while another person can perceive it as the color blue. Color blindness is another point to be considered when discussing color perception. There are various levels and types of this disorder that go way beyond the way light refracts within the retinas of the eye. Certain colors have specific properties that are often complicated for the human retina to collect and understand accurately, along with the fact that each human’s body works variantly from one another. One person may view the color yellow, while the other may express they see the color green. This is what we desire to comprehend.
Another factor to consider is the way people are influenced by others, which affects the colors one see.
The Stroop Effect is a prime example of this issue. In this social experiment, a group of people cooperate and may falsely identify a color, and another unknowing person may begin to see that original color as what the others say it is. Whether this is something that actually affects the way that person identifies the color is up to interpretation. Another example would include optical illusions in which contrasting colors are arranged a certain way, that can easily trick a person into seeing an entirely different color, or seeing the reverse of a color in the world around. The science behind the way colors work together in a way to affect the world around us is an interesting one, and definitely something that is worth researching. It may be a difficult thing to study, but finding out the answers to these pressing questions in the end will all be worth
it.