Stroop Effect Report

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/fdurgin1/ReverseStroop/PBRStroop.html
Draft version
Published version: Nearly forthcoming in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
The Reverse Stroop Effect
Frank H. Durgin
Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College
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Frank H. Durgin
Department of Psychology
Swarthmore College
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081
USA
phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
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Abstract
In classic Stroop interference, manual or oral identification of sensory colors presented as incongruent color words is delayed relative to simple color naming. In the experiment reported here, this effect was shown to all but disappear when the response was simply to point to a matching patch of color. Conversely, strong Reverse Stroop interference occurred with the pointing task. That is, when the sensory color of a color word was incongruent with that word, responses to color words were delayed by an average of 69 msec relative to a word presented in gray. Thus, incongruently-colored words interfere strongly with pointing to a color patch named by the words, but little interference from incongruent color words is found when the goal is to match the color of the word. These results suggest that Stroop effects arise from response compatibility of irrelevant information rather than automatic processing or habit strength.
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The Reverse Stroop Effect
The Stroop Effect is one of the easiest and most powerful effects to demonstrate in a classroom, but not the easiest to explain. Nearly every Introductory Psychology book provides a demonstration of the phenomenon: that it is difficult to name the ink color in which different color words are printed. But what is the proper explanation? Perhaps the weakest hypothesis concerning Stroop interference is that "words are processed faster than are colors." It is true that reading words is faster than naming colors, but this seems to be a matter of

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