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