Essay On The Stroop Effect

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The brain and how it functions is largely complex and holds within various phenomena. One such phenomenon is known as the Stroop Task. The Stroop Task poses a seemingly undemanding challenge, yet reaction times and accuracy are noticeably, negatively affected when compared to the skills found within it and the trend holds true for even the most competent of brains. The test is designed to assess whether being shown a color word that is a separate color and then being asked to name the color of the word has any noticeable effects. Colin M. Macleod has a theory that might give a reason why people are fascinated with an outdated test which has remained mainly unchanged, saying, “Perhaps the task is seen as tapping into the primitive operations …show more content…
The automaticity model presents the idea that the Stroop effect will also apply to words we relate to colors and nonsense words that sound like colors. This particular hypothesis has lead some to believe that inference plays a part in the completing of the Stroop task. The automaticity theory is the most widely recognized and is often seen in psychology books and research as an answer to the Stroop effect. Another hypothesis regarding this phenomenon is the “Speed of Processing” model. The idea behind this is that word processing is largely faster than color processing and that the brain will process the word information before the color, which then leads to the Stroop effect. The parallel distributed processing model is rooted in the idea that completing tasks will develop processing pathways in the brain. These pathways can be altered by various means including practice regarding the task and biological effects. The hypothesis states that if the pathway that connects to the correct answer then there shall be no interference. In the case of the Stroop effect the pathway that would lead to no interference would be the word recognition pathway. Using the above facts one can conclude that if the color processing pathway was stronger then interference shall

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