Bhumika K T

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STROOP’S INTERFERENCE TEST

INTRODUCTION:
The Stroop effect is a psychological phenomenon named after John Ridley Stroop, an
American psychologist who defined it as evidence of interference in task reaction time. The
Stroop effect refers to a delay in reaction times between congruent and incongruent stimuli
(MacLeod, 1991). The congruency, or agreement, occurs when the meaning of a word and its
font colour are the same.
The Stroop effect is one of the best-known phenomena in cognitive psychology. The Stroop
effect occurs when people do the Stroop task, which is explained and demonstrated in detail
in this lesson. The Stroop effect is related to selective attention, which is the ability to
respond to certain environmental stimuli while ignoring others.
The Stroop test, gives individuals incongruent information by having the colour of a word
differ from the colour of the word written. The Stroop test can be used to assess a person's
selective attention capacity and skills, processing speed, and general executive processing
ability when combined with other tests. The Stroop test is used in both experimental and
clinical psychology to "Evaluate the ability to control cognitive interference," which happens
when processing of one stimulus attribute interferes with processing of another. The Stroop
Colour and Word Test (SCWT) is a neuropsychological test extensively used for both
experimental and clinical purposes. It assesses the ability to inhibit cognitive interference,
which occurs when the processing of a stimulus feature affects the simultaneous processing
of another attribute of the same stimulus (Stroop, 1935).
It may seem as though the Stroop effect is just a fascinating experiment with no real effect on
human psychology. In truth, it illustrates a lot about the way we process information and
helps us assess our ability to override our instinctual fast thinking. A study published in the
Psychological Review stated, “The effects observed in the Stroop task provide a clear
illustration of people’s capacity for selective attention and the ability of some stimuli to
escape attentional control.”
A few theories have emerged about why the Stroop effect exists, though there is not
widespread agreement about the cause of the phenomenon. Some reasons proposed for the
Stroop effect include:
According to Selective attention theory, Selective information will be permitted access to
further processing and awareness, and which will be ignored," says selective attention. In
terms of the Stroop effect, determining the colour of the words requires more focus than
merely reading the text. As a result, this idea indicates that our brains analyse written
information rather than colours. Furthermore, the Speed of Processing Theory says that we
can process written words faster than we can process colours, according to this theory for the
cause of the Stroop effect. As a result, identifying the colour after reading the term is
challenging. According to Parallel Distributed Processing, this theory is regarding the cause
of the Stroop effect, we can process written words faster than we can process colours. As a
result, determining the colour after reading the term can be difficult. Finally, according to the
Automaticity Theory, Automatic and controlled thinking are the two types of cognitive
processing we use. In terms of the Stroop effect, the brain is more likely to read the word than
it is to recognise colours because reading is a more automated activity.
To keep in mind the ethical consideration, the experiment was approved by the IB
psychological class’s review board on December 13th, 2013. Several studies, including the

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original experiments by Stroop, suggest that practice can decrease Stroop inference. This has
implications for our learning skills, ability to multitask, and how we form habits.
Psychologist and economist, Daniel Kahneman explored this concept in his book “Thinking,
Fast and Slow.” Our fast thinking, what he refers to as System 1, is our initial, automatic
reaction to things we encounter. However, as there is not a dominant manual response to
words or colours, this asymmetric interference effect disappears. Consistent with this
argument, the asymmetry between word and colour naming decreases when participants
make manual responses, when congruency effects are more equitable for colour and word
naming. Cognitive impairment is no longer considered a normal and inevitable change of
aging. Although older adults are at higher risk than the rest of the population, changes in
cognitive function often call for prompt and aggressive action. In older patients, cognitive
functioning is especially likely to decline during illness or injury.
AIM OF THE EXPERIMENT:
To find out the interference of irrelevant stimulus information over the subject’s performance
through Stroop instrument.
MATERIALS REQUIRED:
1. list consisting of colour written in different colours
2. stop watch
3. writing materials
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN:
The experiment takes less than 2 minutes to complete. It requires button presses instead of
just naming (as in the original study). In the experiment, there are only 40 trials. At the end of
the experiment, you get feedback about your response times in the congruent and incongruent
condition:
A. Incongruent: The colour of the word and the meaning is different (e.g., GREEN)
B. Congruent: The colour of the word and the meaning is the same (e.g., GREEN)
The Stroop effect is here reported as the average response time in incompatible trials minus
compatible trials.
HYPOTHESIS:
Participants will take significantly longer (seconds) to complete task B where colour and
meaning of word conflict, than task A where colour and meaning coincide.
PROCEDURE:
In this task, the subject will see colour names (red, green, blue, yellow) in different ‘print’
colours.
The subject needs to respond to the print colour. For example, if the subject sees: GREEN,
they need to respond to the print colour (red), and press the associated button (“r”). The other
buttons used in this study are “g”, “b”, and “y”, for green, blue and yellow.
RED- press button “r”, because ink is red.
YELLOW- press button “y”, because ink is yellow.
GREEN- press button “g”, because the ink is green
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BLUE- press button “b”, because ink is blue.

It can be difficult, because the name and the ink colour are conflicting (except for yellow in
the example above). So, concentrate and ignore the meaning of the colour words, instead,
look at the ink colour. The subject gets multiple trails and it takes around 5 minutes to
complete. At the end, they get their response times.

RESULTS:
Speed in correct trails,
Congruent: 850 ms
Incongruent: 882 ms
Stroop effect (Incongruent-congruent): 32 ms
TABLE 1. represents individual table

Name of Colour of Stroop Status Response

the word the word (compatibility/incompatibility) (correct/wrong) time in
milliseconds
Yellow Red 0 1 1569
Green Red 0 1 857
Red Yellow 0 1 972
Green Yellow 0 1 917
Blue Red 0 1 867
Yellow Blue 0 1 765
Red Yellow 0 1 1526
Red Green 0 1 885
Yellow Yellow 1 1 1051
Blue Yellow 0 1 731
Green Red 0 1 705
Green Green 1 1 776
Blue Red 0 1 741
Blue Green 0 1 1236
Yellow Red 0 1 869
Yellow Blue 0 1 792
Blue Yellow 0 1 850
Blue Blue 1 1 1125
Yellow Red 0 1 620
Blue Blue 1 1 894
Blue Yellow 0 1 667
Blue Blue 1 1 1012
Red Yellow 0 1 889
Yellow Blue 0 1 961
Green Blue 0 1 1339
Green Green 1 1 830
Yellow Green 0 1 740

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Yellow Yellow 1 1 708

Green Blue 0 1 810
Yellow Yellow 1 1 810
Blue Green 0 1 1056
Yellow Green 0 1 631
Red Blue 0 1 727
Green Yellow 0 1 658
Yellow Green 0 1 917
Red Red 1 1 795
Red Red 1 1 496
Blue Red 0 1 659
Green Red 0 1 618
Red Green 0 1 872

GROUP DISCUSSION: Table 2. represents the data of group A

Sl.no Initials Average response time in milliseconds
1. AN 1184.48
2. ASB 887.975
3. ANV 852.475
4. AN 990.975
5. AJ 683
6. AS 1115.5
7. BKT 873.575
8. BM 958.05
9. JSC 935.27
10. JP 935.025
11. JRN 1157.325
12. JKT 585.025
13. JR 1210.875
14. KRG 933.975
15. KG 779.625
16. KWS 727.875
17. KT 891.775
18. LJ 1077.875
19. CS 1105.2
20. NS 1003.325
21. NM 840
22. NV 794.875
23. NR 840.025
24. PKA 967.9
25. PFL 828.575
26. PM 1090.225
27. PSH 1178.625
28. RI 949.85
29. SNV 990.206
30. SY 863.675

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31. SD 789.215
32. SM 1027.18
33. SJ 766.1
34. SS 952.63
35. SR 919
36. SA 1114
37. SBR 762.475
38. SCA 851.6
39. SGB 1062.75
40. SLP 1063.325
41. SG 796.525
42. YS 830.4
43. YB 885.175
44. AS 981.05
45. AP 746.25
46. BP 1023.8
47. DD 774.2
48. GRB 1173.65
49. NS 1003.325
50. RS 1409.225
51. RBV 728.825
52. AVK 818.76
53. SCP 951.35
54. SC 1077.879
55. AJ 747.67
56. DM 1021.85

DISCUSSION
INDIVIDUAL DISCUSSION:
Preliminaries:
DEMOGRAPHIC DATA:
Initials BKT
Age 20
Gender Female
SES Middle SES
Occupation Student
Education Undergraduation

The subject BKT is a 20-year-old female undergraduate student who has taken the Stroop test
to determine the Stroop interference between the congruent and incongruent stimuli, i.e.,
individuals’ incongruent information by having the colour of a word differ from the colour of
the word written and in case of the congruent stimuli, the colour and the word are the same.

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Constructs like language, attention, orientation, immediate memory and recent memory are
intact.
The subject was in a state of calm and composed space, looked relaxed and particularly
aroused to take up the test. The individual has a congruent score of 850 ms and incongruent
score of 882 ms and the Stroop effect is 32 ms which seems comparatively average. The
average response time of the individual is 873.575.
Some possibilities of having a slightly higher score can be due to the pathways, such as
reading words, are stronger than others, such as naming colours (Cohen et al., 1990). Thus,
the interference is not an issue of processing speed, attention, or automaticity, but rather a
battle between the stronger and weaker neural pathways. Inabilities to identify colour,
malingering or lack of effort could also make the subjects response time higher. The Stroop
test is also used to test the reading ability. Any cognitive dysfunctions related to impairment
to the frontal cortex of the brain is assessed through the use of Stroop test.
The dimensions tapped by the Stroop test is cognitive flexibility, resistance to interference
from outside stimuli, creativity, psychopathology and cognitive complexity. The time taken
to respond to the congruent stimuli has been comparatively lower to the incongruent stimuli.
Continuous presentation of incongruent stimuli can result in having a higher response time
for the congruent stimulus and vice versa, which can support evidently to the parallel
distributed theory and selective attention theory. The reaction time can also increase due to
fatigue and/or inattention to the task.
The subject also has a good ability to inhibit conflicting responses. Relatively good cognitive
flexibility and ability to respond to task demands. The error in recognizing the correct colour
when a conflict is present is associated with the “impulsivity” that the brain is unable to
supress. In order to name the correct colour, the two processes compete for the final decision-
making process. The subject has a Slightly dominating word naming system over the colour
naming system. The subject can indulge in visuo-motor activities which includes assimilation
tasks and those tasks which can accelerate the colour naming system or reverse Stroop tasks.

GROUP DISCUSSION:
The Stroop effect occurs because reading has become an automatic process for most of us.
Even though we have been instructed to just name the colour of the ink, we cannot switch off
reading the word, therefore in task B (congruent) we read first and then identify colour as
they conflict this causes cognitive interference, taking extra time. The mean response time of
the group A was calculated to analyse data collected in the experiment, the means for the list
is given in column 3 respectively. The mean was incorporated in order to find an average to
the participants score.
The average of the group data is 939.353 ms. The subject has performed well when compared
to the group. The results of the participants differed significantly, this could be due to
continuum of automaticity as found in Macleod and Dunbar’s (1988) research. The subject
RS has taken the highest time of 1409.225 to recognize the colour of the word in the presence
of an irrelevant stimulus, which can be as a result of conflict between the two types of
information, the ink colour of the word and the meaning of the word, a poor dominance of the
colour naming system over word naming system. The subject JKT has taken significantly
lower time of 585.025 ms to complete the task even though the stimuli was conflicting at
times. The subject BKT has taken an average time as compared to the entire group of 873.575

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which is significantly lower compared to the entire group, concluding that the cognitive
capabilities like processing speed, attention and the ability to distinguish between stimuli is
comparatively better w.r.t the group.
The results of this study are important in looking at how children learn, specifically at how
they learn to read. When students first begin to learn to read, the task is not automatic. It
requires thought and effort. The students cannot focus as much on what is being read, mostly
on the process of reading. As students get older, reading becomes easier and more automatic.
Teachers should be aware of this, and the information about automaticity, and strive for a
more conscious and attentive way of reading. This is not to say that automaticity is bad, or
that being able to read automatically is wrong, but it is good to be more aware when
performing such tasks. The experiment possessed strengths, such as the fact that the test was
very simple, therefore it would be very easy to replicate for further validity. Some extraneous
variables like noise in the hallway can affect the result.

CONCLUSION
The alternate hypothesis is accepted, hence the Participants took significantly longer
(milliseconds) to complete task B where colour and meaning of word conflict, than task A
where colour and meaning coincide.
However, the goals of this experiment were achieved and rational results were recorded. The
experiment can conclude that it was psychologically harder for participants to recognize the
colour ink of the word when it is incongruent to the colour spelled. It was easier for
participants to read the colour of the ink when it was just a black background or congruent to
the colour spelled out. The results found further proved Stroop’s belief that stimuli were
conflicting with visual factors like in the conflicting colour that was shown to the
participants. There is a conflict between two brain processes which are word-recognition and
colour-recognition. This conflict requires extra processing time. It turns out that we are so
fluent in our language that word-recognition is slightly faster than colour-recognition.

REFERENCES
 MacLeod, C.M. & Dunbar, K. (1988). Training and Stroop-like interference:
Evidence for a continuum of automaticity. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 14(1), 126-135. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.14.1.126
 Ruhl, C., (2020). Stroop Effect | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org.
Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/stroop-effect.html> [Accessed 12
March 2022].
 MacLeod, (2020). [online] Imbs.uci.edu. Available at:
<http://imbs.uci.edu/~kjameson/ECST/MacLeod_TheStroopEffect.pdf> [Accessed 12
March 2022].

 N, & ORLOFF. (2004). Learning re-enabled. ScienceDirect. Retrieved March 13,

2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780323027724/learning-re-enabled
 Scarpina, F. and Tagini, S., (2016). The Stroop Color and Word Test. Retrieved
march 12, 2022, from
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00557/full

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 Stroop, John Ridley (1935). "Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions".

Journal of Experimental Psychology. 18 (6): 643–662. doi:10.1037/h0054651.
hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-002C-5ADB-7. Retrieved 13th March 2022.

 Stroop task. (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2022,

from https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/stroop.html

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Bhumika K T
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