General Physiology Laboratory Stroop Test

How many Stroop-related articles are in literature?

More than 700

Who was the effect named after?

John Ridley Stroop after publishing the effect in 1935

Original Test

1. Read the word, independent of color

2. Read the word, in the color of the word

3. Name the color, independent of word

Stroop effect

the delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli

Two areas of brain are activated when resolving conflicts and catching errors

• Anterior cingulate cortex is used to select an appropriate response and allocate attentional resources

• Dorsolateral prefrontal corext assists in memory and other executive functions

Process of Stroop Interence

1. Presented with incongruent stimuli

2. Posterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) biases info towards most relevant and away from irrelevant

3. Mid-PFC prioritize maintaining relevant info in memory

4. Posterior anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) biases response toward the more relevant info

5. Rostral ACC evaluate and sends feedback to PFC

What happens in the rest of the body?

• Extra effort to process incongruent stimuli is stressful

• Acute stress response results in stimulation of sympathetic nervous system

Processing speed theory

Lag in the brain’s abiliity to recognise the color of the word since the brain reads words faster than it recognises colors

Selective attention theory

Color recognition requires more attention so it takes longer

Automatic word recognition theory

Recognising colors is not an automatic process vs the brain automatically understanding the meaning of words

Parallel distributed processing

As the brain analyzes information, different and specific pathways are developed for different tasks

deuteranopia

red-green

protanopia

red

tritanopia

blue-yellow