The Reverse Stroop Effect

Attention according to Daniel Gopher is “the scientific term primarily used to describe all processes and mechanisms that govern the subjective constraints imposed by the human organism on the flow and interpretation of external and internal information, and on the organization and selection of responses, in the service of goal-directed behavior. In some cases, attention can also be automatically captured by sudden changes in the situation, or by well-trained stimulus–response tendencies.”

Attention can also be defined as the ability to selectively process sensory information actively from the enormous amount of information available through our senses, our stored memories, and our other cognitive processes (De. Weerd, 2003(Best, 1999)The
This aspect of his study that later came to be called the “Reverse Stroop Effect” as it was seen in a comparison between pre and post tests that the subjects who had been reading the incongruent color words for the 8 days of the experiment, now faced an interference in word reading (from 19.4 s before to 34.8s after) however this interference disappeared after the second post test. (22.0 s) (C.M. MacLeod, 1991; Stroop, 1935). This can be attributed to the automaticity theory, which states that reading due to practice is an automatic response and thus doesn’t require attention, however due to the practice the words for a short period became the automatic response, the reverting, can be attributed to the years of practice the subjects have of reading as compared to the week they had for the task. Stroop (1935), attributes this difficulty or the interference to adult, literate participants have had so much practice reading that the task requires little attention and is performed
Sjoberg (1969,1974) using regression analyses of various clinical populations has found support for the reliability and validity of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Other researchers (eg. Smith, Nyman (1974); Sehubo, Hentschel (1977, 1978); Uechi (1972); Santos, Montgomery (1962) directly assessed the reliability of the test Results showed that it was uninfluenced by events interpolated between test and retest. (C.M. MacLeod, 1991). Although it has been considered by Jensen (1965) as one of the most reliable psychometric tests, there have been studies, which find fault in it. Research by Zajano, Hoyceanyls, and Ouellette (1981 ) has shown that ink color and shape change repeatedly on the standard interference card, however only ink color changes on the standard control card. Changing shapes on the control card to correct this confound did not alter the basic effect, however. Sichel and Chandler (1969) argued that alternatives over stimuli was too great in the standard test; their procedure using pairs of stimuli and firmer controls on hue, brightness, and so forth also left the basic pattern intact.(C.M. MacLeod,