Stroop Effect
The Effect of Stroop Level of
Interference on the Reaction Time
Queens College, CUNY
Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess whether Stroop interference did indeed replicate with modern day students. Undergraduate students sample was obtained consisting of 12 females and 6 males, who are students in experimental psychology class. The independent variable was the condition of the stimuli with 3 levels (low, medium and high interference conditions). The dependable variable was the reaction time for the correct responses to the low, medium and high stimuli and the number of errors per condition. A one-way repeated ANOVA resulted in that there was a difference in reaction times and number of errors as the level of interference increased. ATukey’s HSD test found that there was a significant difference between the low and high interference levels and between the medium and high interference levels, as well. Also, there was no significant difference between the low and medium interference levels. That’s why the students didn’t replicate Stroop’s findings. There was a possibility that the sources of interference, like gender effect, auditory and visual distracters influenced the data.
The Effect of Stroop Level of
Interference on the Reaction Time The famous “Stroop Effect” is so called after its founder, J.R.Stroop who discovered and reported this strange phenomenon in his Ph.D. thesis, which was published in 1935 (Desoto, 2001). The original Stroop test is psychological tests of a person’s mental energy, vitality and flexibility (Monahan, 2001) and over the years it has been revised and adapted, yet the basic principles remain constant. The test takes advantage of a person’s ability to read words more promptly and automatically than they can name colors. The Stroop effect occurs as people attempt to name the color of words that spell out a conflicting color, and with the Stroop test the
Interference on the Reaction Time
Queens College, CUNY
Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess whether Stroop interference did indeed replicate with modern day students. Undergraduate students sample was obtained consisting of 12 females and 6 males, who are students in experimental psychology class. The independent variable was the condition of the stimuli with 3 levels (low, medium and high interference conditions). The dependable variable was the reaction time for the correct responses to the low, medium and high stimuli and the number of errors per condition. A one-way repeated ANOVA resulted in that there was a difference in reaction times and number of errors as the level of interference increased. ATukey’s HSD test found that there was a significant difference between the low and high interference levels and between the medium and high interference levels, as well. Also, there was no significant difference between the low and medium interference levels. That’s why the students didn’t replicate Stroop’s findings. There was a possibility that the sources of interference, like gender effect, auditory and visual distracters influenced the data.
The Effect of Stroop Level of
Interference on the Reaction Time The famous “Stroop Effect” is so called after its founder, J.R.Stroop who discovered and reported this strange phenomenon in his Ph.D. thesis, which was published in 1935 (Desoto, 2001). The original Stroop test is psychological tests of a person’s mental energy, vitality and flexibility (Monahan, 2001) and over the years it has been revised and adapted, yet the basic principles remain constant. The test takes advantage of a person’s ability to read words more promptly and automatically than they can name colors. The Stroop effect occurs as people attempt to name the color of words that spell out a conflicting color, and with the Stroop test the