The Stroop Effect

Abstract
Attention is a limited cognitive resource. There are mechanisms that restrict our mental processing capabilities. Due to the role of expectation we can be selective and directive in our attention. Attention in a sense helps guide our focus in attending to more than one subject at a time if necessary. Unfortunately, dividing our attention to numerous subjects at a given time reduces our effectiveness and accuracy. In the process of selective attention we restrict what stimuli we pay attention to (Reisberg, 2013) Through this sort of selective processing of certain stimuli we choose to pay attention to certain information which will then select which will transfer forward or end there (Reisberg, 2013).
Attention consists of several …show more content…
In the stroop effect there were several words presented to the subjects. For example, there was a word that spelled green, but was red in color. Vice versa. The Stroop Effect suggests that we can attend to only one aspect or feature of a stimuli at a time. We cannot simultaneously process word and color because we process them separately. According to the Zaps labs on the Stroop effect, automatic processes can interfere with our performance of less-automated tasks. With sufficient practice, reading and many other skills, such as biking, typing, and driving, have become automated and do not require much thought in order to complete the …show more content…
There was also a study done by Chajut, Schupak and Algom (2010) which combined the stroop effect and emotional stroop to explain how attention is under an emotional state. The participants in the study had to react to a particular stimuli. They had to react to the colors presented in black, and emotional words presented in color. This particular study demonstrated how emotion is intertwined with attention perhaps due to attentional bias. If an individual has a particular disorder it will reduce the reaction time associating it to an emotional word rather than a neutral word. In a different study conducted by Besner and Stolz (1999) there were three experiments on (Neutral Words, Shape Words, Geometric shapes) in which the subjects were supposed to ignore a distractor when a color was presented on the computer screen. The color of the words and shapes presented were outlined or they were filled. They found a higher color congruency when the word or shapes were filled in comparison to when they were not filled. Incongruent colored words are supposed to show an increased reaction time (RT) compared to congruent words. Emotional words are supposed to show an increased reaction time (RT) compared to neutral

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