ZAPS_ Stroop Effect (Week 6)
q. Based on the ideas presented in this ZAPS lab, under which of the following conditions do you think participants would be able to most quickly name the color in which the stimuli are written or drawn?
a. incongruent color words b. colored words with incongruent color associations c. colored blobs -------------------------------- a. c Since these shapes do not have established meanings, there should be nothing interfering with the process of naming their colors.
reaction time
how long it takes for psychological processes to occur in our brains. Description of image Brain imaging evidence for the Stroop effect Reaction time is an indirect gauge of how the brain processes information, but because it is easily measured, it is still widely studied
Description of image Brain imaging evidence for the Stroop effect
neuroimaging (to directly visualize the processing of information by specific parts of the brain through techniques) the meaning of words is determined in a part of the brain's temporal lobe called *the Wernicke's area*, the color of the text is, at least initially, processed by the visual areas of the *occipital lobe* a third area of the brain, the *dorsolateral prefrontal cortex*, is crucial in evaluating the two sources of information, ignoring the irrelevant one, and making a decision.
Learning to read and understand language
one example of a cognitive function. When you learned how to read as a child, you probably needed to devote a considerable amount of attention to sounding out new words and learning their meanings. But with time and practice, reading became automatic and no longer required conscious attention to perform.
Applications of the Stroop effect
the conflict between your impulses and your goals. in one study, research subjects were hypnotized and told that they would be seeing meaningless symbols on a cognitive test. When given a Stroop test, they did not show the typical results and had the same reaction times for congruent and incongruent trials. In this case, the Stroop test was used to verify the effectiveness of hypnosis.
cognition
the mental activity that includes thinking and the understanding gained from thinking, such as memory and intelligence
Stroop effect
Explains the decreased speed of naming the color of ink used to print words when the color of ink and the word itself are of different colors.
Imagine you are a web designer working on an interactive website. You need a symbol to indicate to users that they will start a timed task. Based on the ideas presented in this ZAPS lab, which of the following symbols would be most effective for this purpose?
To most effectively signal users to start a task, congruent colors, words, and shapes should be used. In most of the world, green is used to indicate "GO," while red is used to indicate "STOP." The circle is a neutral shape that does not conflict with the concept of "GO," unlike the octagon, which is also associated with "STOP.
the Stroop test
a task designed to measure conflicts between two sensory inputs that is perhaps the mostly widely used and important of all cognitive tests *Congruent trials*: words and colors match. *Incongruent trials*: words and colors do not match.
the concept of *semantic interference*
being distracted by the meaning of words. Your brain automatically recognizes the meaning of the words you see even when the chief task you are given is to recognize the color of the text of the word. Your mind recognizes the word meaning and the color of the text using different processes. During incongruent trials, processing word meaning conflicts with the color recognition process, causing you to respond more slowly.
