Experiment-1

The Stroop Effect

Aim:

The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the Stroop effect and to investigate how interference
affects participant’s ability in both the conditions.

Introduction

Attention is the ability to actively process specific information in the environment while tuning out
other details. Attention is limited in terms of both capacity and duration, so it is important to
have ways to effectively manage the attentional resources we have available in order to make
sense of the world.

Types of Attention

Sustained Attention

This form of attention, also known as concentration, is the ability to focus on one thing for a
continuous period. During this time, people keep their focus on the task at hand and continue
to engage in a behaviour until the task is complete or a certain period of time has elapsed.

Alternating Attention

This type of attention involves multitasking or effortlessly shifting attention between two or more
things with different cognitive demands.3 It's not about focusing on more than one thing at
the same time, but about stopping attending to one thing and then switching to the next task.

Selective Attention

Selective attention involves being able to choose and selectively attend to certain stimuli in the
environment while at the same time tuning other things out.4 For example, you might
selectively attend to a book you are reading while tuning out the sound of your next-door
neighbours’ car alarm going off.
This type of attention requires you to be able to tune out extraneous external stimuli, but also internal
distractions such as thoughts and emotions in order to stay selectively attuned to a task.

Focused Attention

This type of attention involves being able to be suddenly drawn to a specific visual, auditory, or
tactile stimuli such as a loud noise or a flash of light. It is a way of responding rapidly to
external stimuli, which can be particularly important in situations where something in the
environment requires immediate attention and quick action.

Limited Attention

Limited attention, or divided attention, is a form of attention that also involves multitasking. In this
case, however, attention is divided between multiple tasks. Rather than shifting focus, people
attend to these stimuli at the same time and may respond simultaneously to multiple
demands.

Automatic Control Processing-:

Automatic and Controlled Processes (ACP)is a two-part theory of human cognition. Automatic
processes and controlled processes are the two categories of cognitive process addressed by
the theory, which states that all cognitive processes fall into one or both of those two
categories. The amounts of “processing power”, attention, and effort a process requires is the
primary factor used to determine whether it’s a controlled or an automatic process.

Controlled Process is an intentionally-initiated sequence of cognitive activities. In other words,

when active attention is required for a task (such as reading this article,) the cognitive process
directing that performance is said to be “controlled".

Attention control is a major example of controlled processing in which a subdominant response is

substituted with a dominant one. There are three types of attention control:

 Selective Attention: Focusing attention on one aspect of the environment, while

avoiding attention to other stimuli, to include those that are "attention-grabbing".
 Divided Attention: Attending and responding to multiple streams of information
simultaneously.
 Sustained Attention: Focusing attention over a long period of time.
Stroop Effect-:

The Stroop effect was first published back in 1935 by American psychologist John Ridley Stroop,
although discoveries of this phenomenon date back to the nineteenth century (Stroop, 1935).

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. For example, if the word “green” is printed in the colour green.
Incongruent stimuli are just the opposite. That is, the meaning of the word and the colour in
which it is written do not align. For example, the word “green” might be printed in red ink.

Selective attention theory: According to this theory, naming the actual colour of the words requires
much more attention than simply reading the text.

Speed of processing theory: This theory states that people can read words much faster than they can
name colours. The speed at which we read makes it much more difficult to name the colour
of the word after we've read the word.

Automaticity: This theory proposes that automatic reading doesn't require focused attention.
Instead, the brain simply engages in it automatically. Recognizing colours, on the other hand,
may be less of an automated process. While the brain registers written meaning
automatically, it does require a certain amount of attentional resources to process colour,
making it more difficult to process colour information and therefore slowing down reaction
times.

Review of Literature-:

As per Kimble et al., (2009) research attempted to determine the modified Stroop effect, in which
participants show delayed colour naming to trauma-specific words. The current study used a
novel approach (Dissertation Abstract Review; DAR) to review the presence of the modified
stroop effect in dissertation abstracts. The study revealed that only 8% of the studies found
delayed reaction times to trauma-specific words in participants with PTSD. The most
common finding (75%) was for no PTSD-specific effects in colour naming trauma-relevant
words. This ratio is significantly lower than ratios found in the peer reviewed literature, but
even in the peer reviewed literature only 44% of controlled studies found the modified Stroop
effect.
As indicated by Scarpina and Tagini (2017) The Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT) is a
neuropsychological test extensively used to assess the ability to inhibit cognitive interference
that occurs when the processing of a specific stimulus feature impedes the simultaneous
processing of a second stimulus attribute, well-known as the Stroop Effect. The aim of the
present work is to verify the theoretical adequacy of the various scoring methods used to
measure the Stroop effect. We present a systematic review of studies that have provided
normative data for the SCWT. We referred to both electronic databases (i.e., PubMed,
Scopus, Google Scholar) and citations. Our findings show that while several scoring methods
have been reported in literature, none of the reviewed methods enables us to fully assess the
Stroop effect. Furthermore, we discuss several normative scoring methods from the Italian
panorama as reported in literature. We claim for an alternative scoring method which takes
into consideration both speed and accuracy of the response. Finally, we underline the
importance of assessing the performance in all Stroop Test conditions (word reading, color
naming, named color-word).

As indicated by Augustinova et al., (2019) most research studies on stroop effect assume that the
Stroop interference effect has several distinct loci (as opposed to a single response locus).
The present study was designed to explore whether this is the case with both manual and
vocal responses. This study used an extended form of the Stroop paradigm that successfully
distinguishes between the contribution of the task vs. semantic vs. response conflict to overall
Stroop interference. The later findings suggested the following, in experiment 1 yielded an
important response modality effect: the magnitude of Stroop interference was substantially
larger when vocal responses were used. Moreover, the present findings show that the
response modality effect is specifically due to the fact that Stroop interference observed with
vocal responses results from the significant contribution of task, semantic, and response
conflicts. This exact pattern was replicated in Experiment 2. experiment 2 also investigated
whether and how the response modality effect affects Stroop facilitation. The results showed
that the magnitude of Stroop facilitation was also larger when vocal as opposed to manual
responses were used. This was due to the fact that semantic and response facilitation
contributed to the overall Stroop facilitation observed with vocal responses, but surprisingly,
only semantic facilitation contributed with manual responses (no response facilitation was
observed).
Hypothesis1: The reaction time for the congruent condition will be Significantly faster than that of
the incongruent condition.

Hypothesis2: Fewer mistakes will be made within the congruent condition in comparison to the
incongruent condition

Method:
Description of the Test:

A repeated measures design was used for this experiment. This requires using the same participants
for each condition – congruent and incongruent. This allows the responses from an individual
for the congruent condition to be directly compared to their response for the incongruent
condition. There were two conditions being compared. The congruent condition consisted of
words written in the same colour ink e.g. the word ‘red’ was written in red ink. The second
condition was incongruent e.g. ‘red’ written in blue ink.

Subject Preliminaries:

Name:

Age: Ms. D

Gender: Female

Educational Qualification: BA (H) English 3rd Year

Materials Required:

Two sets of cards, ie, one having the same ink colour name card and the other one in which the ink
of the colour is different from the name of the colours.

Stopwatch & paper and pencils.

Variables:

Independent Variable: Two sets of cards (i.e. congruent and incongruent conditions).
Dependent Variable: Reaction time taken by the subject to respond for each card and Error
committed by the subject for each card

Rapport Formation:

The participant was made comfortable. An informal conversation was initiated to make them feel
relaxed. Once it was ensured that they are comfortable, the experiment was introduced. The
instructions for the experiment were given to the subject. The participant was assured that
their results would be kept confidential and not shared with anyone. If they had any query, it
was addressed and the procedure was started.

Instructions:

“I will show you the card and you have to name the colour of the ink in which words are written.
Whatever response comes first in your mind you have to mention that response in an audible
voice. If you have any query regarding the experiment, you can ask me without any
hesitation.”

Precautions:

Before the conduction of the experiment, it was ensured that the lighting facility in the lab was
proper. The name of the colour were presented in a random manner to avoid the chance of
being fatigued and repetitiveness. It was made sure that there was no background noise to
avoid unwanted distractions. The size of the cards was same in both the conditions.

Procedure:

The subject was made to sit in a quiet and comfortable lab. Rapport had been established with the
subject by convincing them that their responses will be kept confidential. Then, the
instructions were given to the subject. As such there is no time limit to complete the
experiment but you have to respond to whatever response comes to your mind at the first
place. One by on the cards were shown to the subjects and their responses and time taken
were noted down.

Introspective Report:

It was a really good experiment, I enjoyed doing this experiment. The room was well lit, although I
had no trouble naming the ink colours but it did take a bit more time in responding the names
in the second set of cards. All over it was a very fun experiment to perform.
Observational Report:

The subject was calm during the experiment, it was observed that the subject was easily able to name
the colours in the incongruent set of cards, the subject performed the whole task with ease.

Results:

Type of list Total time taken Error (Average Error)

Congruent List 29.08 seconds 0
Incongruent List 55 seconds 1 (0.041)

Calculations:

Average error for Congruent List- 0/24= 0

Average error for Incongruent List- 1/24= 0.041

Discussion:

The aim of the experiment was to investigate the stroop effect and to investigate how interference
affects participant’s ability in both the conditions. Two possible hypothesis were made while
conducting this experiment, Hypothesis1: The reaction time for the congruent condition will
be Significantly faster than that of the incongruent condition.

Hypothesis2: Fewer mistakes will be made within the congruent condition in comparison to the
incongruent condition. After conducting the experiment, the results came out to be for
congruent list the time taken was 29.08 seconds and average error committed was 0,
while in the incongruent list time taken was 55 seconds and average error committed was
1. It was observed as in the incongruent list the subject took more time and committed errors
in compared to the congruent list because in the second condition the second condition the
colour of the ink and name of the colour were not matching thus proving our both hypothesis.

Conclusion:

This experiment supports the hypothesis as the time taken and error committed were
more in the second condition (incongruent list) compared to the congruent list.
References:

Parris, B. A., Augustinova, M., & Ferrand, L. (2019). Editorial: The Locus of the Stroop

Effect. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02860

Kimble, M. O., Frueh, B. C., & Marks, L. (2009). Does the modified Stroop effect exist in

PTSD? Evidence from dissertation abstracts and the peer reviewed literature. Journal

of Anxiety Disorders, 23(5), 650–655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.02.002

Scarpina, F., & Tagini, S. (2017). The Stroop Color and Word Test. Frontiers in Psychology,

8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00557