ABSTRACT
The reaction time taken to name the ink-colour of a printed colour name is longer if the colour of the ink is different from the colour name (e.g. if the word ‘red’ is printed in green). Named after its discoverer J.R. Stroop (Stroop, 1935). This interference effect has proved to be enormously useful as an experimental variable (generally known as the ‘Stroop task’) in a multitude of contexts, particularly those related to attention and brain functioning. It is particularly robust and resists practice effects. A few variants have been developed for other sense modalities, including an ‘emotional Stroop’ in which colour-naming of negative emotional words is slower in depressed patients, while colour-naming of emotion-related words is also slower to some degree among ‘normals’. The literature on the Stroop effect is almost all in journal paper form, but the Wikipedia entry is a useful starting point.
