THE STROOP EFFECT

The stroop effect is an experiment that was first conducted by John Ridley Stroop in the 1935. As stated by the dictionary, the stroop effect is a psychological experiment that tests the reaction time of a task. The task taken in consideration is the one of looking at our ability to read words faster and automatically than when we say colors. The cognitive mechanism that is involved in this experiment is called direct attention, you have to manage your attention, stop, think and then respond to it.

How was the experiment conducted?

• The Stroop task is separated in 3 separate sheets of paper. The name of the color and the color on each name is different depending on the sheet. 
• Stroop was trying to show that the person read the word faster when it has the same color on the word. This was on the first sheet. 
• On the second sheet, stroop was asking for the experimenter to say the color that he saw on each word out loud and not to focus on the words.
• On the last sheet, stroop wanted to prove that after practicing for 8 days the experiment, the time they took to express the color or the word decreased.

Results?

After conducting the experiment, Stroop found that naming the color on the word was much slower than reading the words out loud. Also, he saw that the practice of this could decrease the amount of time that it took to say them. He also was able to prove the effects of information going into the right hemisphere of the brain and the left hemisphere and how conflicting this was. 

Why does this Happen?

This happens because the brain can only manage one task at a time. For example, your right brain is trying to say the color but the left side is trying to say the word. This makes that there is too much information going into the brain and you cannot perform both tasks at the same time. The brain is trying to do one thing, read which is what is more automatically done, and this affects the time it takes to say the color instead of the word. 

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-stroop-effect.htm

http://www.rit.edu/cla/gssp400/sbackground.html

The Myth of Multitasking

Questions:

1. Why is multitasking considered by many psychologists to be a myth?
2. To what does the term "response selection bottleneck" refer?
3. David Meyer has found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Why is this important?
4. Explain what Russell Podrack found regarding multitasking.
5. What does the author conclude could happen to our culture as a result of increased multitasking?

Answers to questions:

1. Many psychologists believe that the idea of multitasking is simply a myth because humans are only born with one brain, which implies that we are a single person. Through the studies that have been conducted, they have proven that the idea of multitasking is not that a person does all the things at the same time, instead, it is the switching and alternation of tasks in just seconds. It has been proven that it is not effecient at all, since our mind focuses on one action and forgets or does poorly on the other one.
2. The psychologist, Marois, found out about this term that occurs when the brain is forced to respond to several stimuli at the same moment, which only leads to time loss because the brain is the one that decides which task to perform.
3. It is important because Meyer contributed to the fact that this release may cause long-term health problems on the person if they are not controlled and this may contribute to loss of short-term memory, which would affect a lot on the normal way of living of a person.
4. The main idea of Russel in his finding was that the multitasking affects the way of learning of a person. He states that learning with multitasking, makes it less flexible and that the information can therefore not be retrieved in an easy manner. To explain this, he conducted an experiment in which he analyzes the brain of people who don't use multitasking and the brain of those who do use multitasking. As a result, he found that the people who do use multitasking use a part of their brain called striatum. This section of the brain is involved with the learning of new skills but in a lame way, while the people who don't use it tend to store and retrieve information more precisely. He finally states that humans are born to focus on one task and not on multiple of them because this makes the works and ideas less efficient and precise.
5. As a conclusion, he states that the society may gain information through multitasking but loose wisdom. This means that people will learn a lot of things and recieve more information but the way they act upon it will be less efficient.

"THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING" by Christine Rosen

Observations of the BaMbuti Pygmies

The BaMbuti Pygmies were one of the most famous tribes in the African culture since they were under 4feet 6 inches tall in height . They lived in the Ituri Forest of the eastern Congo. Pygmies were also rear because the blood type differ so much from others. Bambuti pygmies were psychologically conditioned to their enviorment, and also had diffrent percetions on objects that the saw everyday.  The Pygmies are nomadic hunters and gather food for their own consumption, they also trade with thier neighbors for pot or pans which were not available in the forest. the were nomads since they moved every three weeks in order to gather food and had diffrent hunting techniques. it was intresting the way in which they married it was an important eent and was also called the "sister exchange" and were also amazing musicans. Colin Turnbull was an anthropologist who studied African societies and one of the most important tries he was interested in were the Bambuti pygmies and hunting societies thats why he decided to learn more about them. Turnbull studied the way in which they lived and their perspective . He reviled the IK and described the latter as lacking in any sense of altruism. Turnbull found out that eventhough bambuti lived in the forest the didnt know what mountains and hills were because they had never seeen thing from a perception far away. Colin observed a 22 year old boy called Keny and saw that he called thing that he had never seen like if they were witch craft because of their size. then keny understood and adapted to the enviorment understanding whhat things were. He had never seen this before since in his forest when you get up a tree the more you can see are 1OO feet below. Colins information was that perception is completly different for pygmies and that they adapt to eniviorments easily.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/cultures_of_world/64224