Stroop Effect

Science Fair

Purpose:

My purpose for this experiment is to thoroughly investigate the Stroop Effect, which only happens when you try to name the color in which color words are printed, it takes longer when the color word differs from the ink color than when the color word is the same as the ink color. In this experiment I am going to see whether this is true and to go along with the experiment, I am going to research what causes the Stroop Effect to happen.

Hypothesis:

My hypothesis is that the Stroop Effect will work on a great majority of the people I test. I also predict that there might be a part of the brain that functions to do this but the words themselves have a stronger influence over the color that the words are printed in.

Materials:

 Computer to display website with Stroop Test and timer to go along with it

 A reasonable number of subjects to test. In this case it’s fifty.

Procedure:

1. I got onto http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html which is the website I used to test my subjects with since it had the test on it and a timer to go with it.

2. I gathered fifty people who were going to try Stroop Test. I tested people that varied in age from seven years old to fifty six years old and made sure I tested twenty five boys and twenty five girls.

3. I made sure they understood my instructions very clearly.

 I showed them an example trial about what they should be naming, which was the written word rather than the color of the font.

 I told them that if they were to make a mistake, they would have to re-read that one word over until they got it right. This was the point because if they read it with mistakes, I would have the same results