J R Stroop Experiments

ljuooooooooooooooooooooooo mft5 gtukiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk lllllllllllllllllllllllllll jjjjl mj km ll lllll lll llllllllllllll l lllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll l llllllllllllllllllllll llllllllll76ujkjkkjnb mes McKeen Cattell and Wilhelm Wundt in the nineteenth century.[2][3][4]

In his experiments, J. R. Stroop administered several variations of the same test for which three different kinds of stimuli were created. In the first one, names of colors appeared in black ink. In the second, names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Finally in the third one, there were squares of a given color.[1]

In the first experiment, 1 and 2 were used. The task required the participants to read the written color names of the words independently of the color of the ink (for example, they would have to read "purple" no matter what the color of its ink was). In the second experiment, stimulus 2 and 3 were used, and participants were required to say the color of the letters independently of the written word with the second kind of stimulus and also name the color of the dot squares. If the word "purple" was written in red, they would have to say "red", but not "purple"; when the squares were shown, the participant would have to say its color. Stroop, in the third experiment, tested his participants at different stages of practice at the tasks and stimulus used in the first and second experiments, to account for the effects of association.[1]

Stroop identified a large increase in the time taken by participants to complete the color reading in the second task compared to the naming of the color of the squares in experiment 2 while this delay did not appear in the first experiment. Such interference was explained by the automation of reading, where the mind automatically determines the semantic meaning of the word (it reads the word "red" and thinks of the color "red"), and then must override this first impression with the identification of the color of the word (the ink is a color other than red), a process that is not automatized.[1]

Unlike researchers performing the Stroop test that is most commonly used in psychological evaluation,[5] J.R Stroop never compares the time used for reading black words and the time needed for naming colors that conflicted with the written word.

[edit]Experimental findings

Stimuli in Stroop paradigms can be divided into 3 groups: neutral, congruent and incongruent. Neutral stimuli comprise those in which only the text (similarly to stimuli 1 of Stroop's experiment), or color (similarly to stimuli 3 of Stroop's experiment) are displayed.[6] Congruent stimuli are