This is shown in the Stroop Effect. The Stroop Effect gets participants to name aloud the colours of ink in which words are written. Some of the words are in conflict with the colour of ink, whilst others have a non-conflicting meaning. Stroop showed that participants had greater difficulty in naming the colour words were written in. This was due to the automatic process of reading, interfering with naming the colour of ink. Although, the Stroop Effect has generated further research and studies, there have been criticisms towards the Stroop Effect for ignoring the effect of semantic processing and meaning of the words.
The following investigation is based on the Stroop Effect and was completed to see whether similar results were retained.
Aim
The aim of this experiment is to see whether participants will take longer to identify the colour of ink in which conflicting and non conflicting words are written.
Hypothesis
These are one tailed hypotheses.
The Experimental Hypothesis (Hi): It is predicted that participants will take longer to identify and name the colour of ink that non-conflicting words are written in.
The Null Hypothesis (Ho): The null hypothesis is that there will be no difference in the time taken to correctly identify the colour of ink of words with conflicting meanings compared to words with non-conflicting meanings.
Method
Design
The design of this investigation is a laboratory experiment. It is being done in a laboratory experiment so that the participants are not distracted. A laboratory experiment was conducted because variables could be controlled and it also helps to make the environment as similar as possible for all the participants so they feel comfortable during the task.
The experiment uses a repeated measures design. A repeated measures design was used so as to eliminate participant variables, such as memory skills.
The Independent Variable of this experiment is the type of word list; the first word list consists of conflicting colour words (BLUE). The second word list is made up of non-conflicting meaning words (TREE).
The Dependant Variable in this experiment is the time take for participant to correctly read aloud the colour of ink each word on the list is written.
By having the investigation as a laboratory experiment with independent groups design, it helps to control any extraneous variables that may arise.
One extraneous variable that could occur in an experiment is order effects. Order effects can change performance in the second condition either by improving it (as the participant has had practice at the task), or their performance may worsen, because they have a fatigue effect. To avoid there being any bias results due to order effects, some of the participants could do the task with the conflicting word list first, whilst others have to do the list with the non-conflicting words first.
Participants
The target population for this experiment is females aged 16-18 years old at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School.
Opportunity sampling was drawn from the target population. This method was used as it was the most convenient and it means the sample selected consists of people who are available and willing members of the target population. However, there are negative points to this method as it means there was not an equal chance for everyone in the target population and therefore the results and findings cannot be generalised. Random sampling would have been the fairest method used because this type of sampling means every member of the target population has a chance of being selected, however this method is too time consuming and therefore inappropriate.
The total number of participants gathered for this experiment is 18, 16-18 year old females from Queen Elizabeth’s 6th form common room.
Materials
The materials for this experiments consisted of two word lists. There were 14 words on both lists. On one of the lists the 14 words were different colours, on the other list there were 14 objects such as HOUSE. The words were chosen so that they were suitable for different levels of participant’s ability. There were 14 words written as this was enough words to gain a reasonable amount of time to measure. The font the words were written is was Times New Roman and was size 22. The size and font was chosen so that the lists were very clear and easy for all the participants to see. The colours chosen to write the words in were all colours that were unambiguous and therefore should not cause any unnecessary hesitation in naming the colour of ink.
Ethical considerations
Experiment abides by the code of ethics set out by The British Psychological Society (BPS) (200)
Control of Ethical Considerations:
Consent: All participants are aged 16 or above and gave consent before participating in the experiment. To gain this consent all participants were fully briefed, where they had the opportunity to ask any questions and leave without taking part in the experiment. However, informed consent was not given as the participants were asked if they could receive the aim at the end of the experiment so to avoid any bias in the experiment.
Deception: Participants were not deliberately deceived or misled in any way. They were briefed on what their participation entailed. To avoid deception involving the aim of the experiment, participants were asked for permission to be given the full aim after the experiment had taken place.
Confidentiality: All participants’ data was kept confidential. They were informed of this confidentiality at the beginning of the experiment in the brief and at the end in the debrief. They were told the data remains anonymous and no names were used in the investigation. It was not possible to identify any participants’ data as there was not any personal information incorporated in the experiment, for example you would not be able to distinguish the participants due to their handwriting as the researcher recorded the time taken for each participant.
Withdrawal from the investigation: All participants had the right to withdraw from the experiment at any point. They were informed of this right at the beginning during the brief and again at the end, where they had the right to withdraw their data after learning the full aim of the experiment. After hearing the aim of the experiment, some of the participants may have felt embarrassed if they felt their results were unsatisfactory, therefore, all participants were strongly reminded that they had the right to withdraw their data and that at all times their data remains confidential.
Procedure
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.The researcher met the participants individually in the sixth .form common room at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School.
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.Participant is led to a quiet location (room MW01), where .they .were briefed.
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.Participant takes a seat.
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.Researcher reads out the Brief Sheet.
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.Researcher places the first word list in the table, faced .down .in front of the participant.
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.Researcher checks the stopwatch is reset.
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.The participant is asked to turn over the word list and name .aloud the colour of ink the words are written in as fast as .they can, whilst the researcher times them with the .stopwatch.
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The researcher notes the time taken to correctly name aloud .the colour of ink for all the words on the list.
- The researcher then takes away the list
1O. Points 5-9 are then repeated, using the second word list.
11. The participants are then debriefed and researcher confirms ……..that they still do not wish to withdraw their data.
12. The participant is led out of the room.
This procedure is repeated with all the participants.
Results
A table to show the range and average time taken (in seconds) for participants to correctly name aloud the colour of ink in which conflicting and non-conflicting words are written.
The most helpful averages to look at are the mean and media. The mean was calculated because it is a sensitive measure of central tendency as it uses all the scores. From looking at the table, it can be seen that on average, participants took less time to name the colour of the ink correctly if the meaning of the word did not conflict with colour. This is show as the mean for conflicting colour words is higher at 10.284 that non-conflicting words, 8.642.
A parametric test was used to analyse the data for this study.
A parametric test is used as they are powerful, sensitive and measure very accurately.
The data for this study was analysed using a t test (parametric test).
A related t test was conducted in order to find out whether or not the data was significant. This means, to see what the probability of the results obtained were by chance. A related t test was chosen because the type of data was interval and the design was a repeated measures design. These together mean the related t test was the most appropriate test to see whether the results were significant.
