Speed processing theory is the speed in which information is processed. The word of the colour is read faster than the colour of the word. There is a significant difference shown in Stroop’s experiment. Inspection time is the speed the stimulus intake. Deary and Stough 1996 claims to have a high correlation between inspection time and IQ. Reaction time is an individual’s time to see how quickly the information is processed. This slow processing of information means the individual cannot handle complex questions. Furthermore. We are so tuned to the words we acquired since young. Our early experience (learning when young) also affects the automatic processing, speed processing theory reaction time and selective attention. My research question is to see if there is interference in reading the incongruent colour of the ink and reading congruent colour of the ink of the words through indivuidal’s reaction time.
Stroop Effect is the test of delay and interruption while reading a colour ink itself written in different colour letter. For example, red, written in the colour blue, Red.
The task of the experiment is to name the colour of the ink and ignore the colour letter. All participants will be given a sheet of paper with the word-colour task. The same sheet will be used throughout all participants. It will be done individually in a quiet room as the environment may distract them from the experiment.
The researcher’s predicted result to research hypothesis is that the incongruent colour of the word will takes longer time than the congruent.
Research Hypothesis H1- There will be significantly more time taken (ms) to name the incongruent colour of the ink with a different colour word, than for participants to name the congruent colour of the ink with the same colour word.
Null Hypothesis H0- There will be no significance difference in participants to name either congruent or incongruent colour of the words.
Method
Repeated measure is used because it increases the sensitivity of the result as my number of participants are quite low. This could make your result more precise and the variation is on one subject. Furthermore, control in my experiment is the congruent and incongruent words from the sample sheet. (Refer to appendix iii)
The independent variables in the research are the congruent and incongruent colour list from the sheet and the dependent variable are the time taken to name the colour of the word. The independent variable works by itself and cannot be affected by any other controls whereas dependent variable depends on many factors. They can be due to speed of processing theory, selective attention, automatic processing, the number of words in your experimental tests and other factors.
In addition, Participants’ name will be anonymous as their confidentiality is important to them in many ways such as they may care what people think about them if other people found out about their scores. Ethical consideration should be given to everyone as the experiment may affect their psychological state or their everyday life. How the researcher treats the participants can be an ethical consideration to the experiment. After the experiment participants are not psychologically, physically, or emotionally hurt in any way possible. So this experiment can be considered ethical.
Participants
There will be 20 participants in total, 10 male and 10 female. They will be around 16-18 years old. The researcher’s method of selection will be by opportunity sample. Opportunity sample is convenient and ethical.
Materials
Paper in coloured words (20 words: 10 congruent, 10 incongruent), (Refer to appendix iii) a quiet well lit room, stopwatch that measure up till millisecond, result table
Procedure
Firstly a hypothesis is formulated that the participants would take longer to name the colour ink than the words. They will be chosen at opportunity sample from a school. The experiment would then take placed in a quiet room. In addition, before they do the experiment they will listen to my standarised instruction and a consent letter will then need to be signed. During my standarised instruction I will aim to ease them to be comfortable and reassure them that the test would be anonymous as this could affect my experiment if the participants are tense. The experiment will be done individually in the same well-lit quiet room (see appendix). Furthermore, participant will be given the sheet with a list of words and direct them to say the colour ink of the words as fast as possible. The researcher will be recording the time taken with a stopwatch. When the participant is ready they will be told to turn the sheet and start reading. After the first experiment, the participants will be told to stop and turn the sheet face down again while the researcher write the results down. Continuing with the second experiment the participant will be told again to prepare himself or herself. They, however, will not be informed of the incongruent in experiment 1 and congruent in experiment 2 as this may result in just reading the word and not the colour of the ink in the second experiment. Participants were then debriefed.
Result
The mean of the difference in time taken for congruent and incongruent from the list of words
See raw data (appendix iv)
Standard deviation is calculated in order to get the calculated value.
The gap between congruent and incongruent time taken show some difference but does not necessarily mean have a significant difference.
The difference is between the mean incongruent and mean congruent is 9.50-5.8=3.783. The standard deviation (see appendix iii) is 3.51, and the degree of freedom is 19. The calculated vale is 4.626 and critical value is 1.729. Therefore, calculated value is higher and we can say that the experimental hypothesis is accepted at a significance level p<0.05.
Discussion
The level of significance shows my hypothesis is accepted as the calculated value is higher than the critical value at a significance level of p<0.05. So there is interfernce to name the congruen and incongruent colour of the word to the letter word.
The researcher having heard of suggestions from participants that they could cheat by squinting their eye so they can’t see the word and only read the colour of the ink but I have been present and was able to give the indvidual attention to see if they do so or not.
In my experiment sheet, the limitation of each experiment is in 2 rows which may take the reader somewhat more time to go to the next sentence. If the words were just in a row it might be more accurate. Secondly, the number of participants and variety are very limited and would have less opportunity to generalise to people from different places and of age and gender. In order to be able to generally apply to everyone, the researcher would need many participants from different environment.
Thirdly, in repeated measures, we are not able to get all individuals in the same room as this may also have any anomly in the researcher’s experiment. It is not convenient to call participants in the same room as the experiments take place at school and class time would not allow the researcher to experiment and after school or at breaks, students are not willing. This may be avoided if a reward such as food or present is given to the participant, one might be able to get people individully at break in the same room for all participants. Emotion is also variable that is hard to control, the researcher would try to make them as comfortable as possible. Fouthly, mistakes made by participants to name the colour of the word, were not asked to reread the word. Participants should be asked to reread the mistakes as some people may use this chance to just read the words without proper attention. So to take the experiment seriously mistakenly said words should be asked to say it again until the participants gets it right.
Strengths of the experiment is that the confident that the researcher is able to proceed with the experiment knowing that it does not hurt them psychologically, psyhically or emotionally. This way the researcher can pass this comfort to the participants and they can be more relaxed while taking the experiment. Secondly, the experiment took vey little time and does not make the particpants feel agitated or annoyed of taking their time so long. This can make the experiment more accurate also because it was done within their concentration spam. Thirdly, there is no possible way of faking their results as the experiment is done face to face.
It is a surprise that the experiment with Stroop would be the same after replication but the replication is not greater in realibility, as the number of people and the depth does not go to his level of depth.
Automatic processing may affect the naming of the words as human beings are used to or a nautral process to read the word of the colour rather than the colour of the word. This is because participants did not learn how to name the colour of the word in schools or when young or practice them so need a conscious effort to name the colour of the word.
Selective attention may also affect the particpants as they might be distracted with other thoughts in their brain.
Speed processing theory depends on individual so different people may vary in the speed of processing the information the participants read.
In conclusion, there is interfernece in naming the incongruent colour of the ink with a different colour word.
Conclusion
The calculated vale is 4.626 and critical value is 1.729. So, calculated value is higher and we can say that the experimental hypothesis is accepted at a significance level p<0.05. Therefore, there is interference to name the incongruent and congruent, colour of the word and the colour of the ink.
References
David A.Balota and Elizabeth J.Marsh, 2005 Cognitive Psychology, pp 193-200
Dennis Coon, 2006, a modular approach to mind and behaviour, Thomson Higher Education, USA, Chapter 2-Brain and Behaviour, Edition:10.
, 2007, A TEST OF CAPACITY TO DIRECT ATTENTION(online), Available from: ,
Edward Awh and William J. Gehring 1999, The anterior cingulate cortex lends a hand in response selectiona, volume 2 no 10, page : 853
Michael S. Gazzaniga, Emilio Bizzi, Attention, Michael I. Posner, The New Cognitive Neurosciences, Published by MIT Press, 2000, Edition: 2.
Stephen K.Reed, 2004, cognition theory and application, Thomson higher education, USA, Chpater 3-attention, Edition:6
Stroop, John Ridley (1935). "". Journal of Experimental Psychology 18: 643-662. Retrieved on 2009-03-02.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(online) Available from: Retrieved on 2009-03-11
Appendix I
Informed Consent Forms given to particpants for agreement of terms and condtions:
- I have been informed to the type of research I will be participating in.
- I have the right to withdraw from the experiment anytime.
- Any information that I leave during the experiment will be confidential. This includes any forms of data and information.
- My name will be anonymous which will be protected and will not be identified in any way.
- I will be debriefe after the experiment and if I wish to find out the results, I will be entilted to.
- I have no records of mental illness such as Schizophrenia, Neurosis, Psychosis, Bi-polar disorder, personality disorder, Dementia, Depression Acute.
- I do not have colour blindness or any form of visual defects.
- I will not discuss with anyone about the experiment.
I have read the consent form and I have listened to the standarised instruction and is willin gto participate in this research.
Name (optional) :
Date :
Contact Number:
Signature :
Appendix II
Standarised Instruction
The following were read aloud to the participants:
Dear Participant,
You will be taking an experiment which is for my Psychology I.A. I thank you very much for being here today. Although you will be taking the experiment alone it will only take a few mintues of your time. You will be seated here and I will wait until you are ready to take the experiment. The experiment is on the Stroop Effect. You may have heard of it or even taken the test before. It is a simple test where you read the colour of the word rather than the word written. For example the word red is written in blue colour ink, you would say blue rather than the word red. I will be measuring your time taken but do not be alarmed as your identity will not be revelaed in anyway. When you start, read the colour of the ink as fast as you can and after reading 2 lines of from the sheet, stop for a while for me to write it down. Then, you can resume anytime and just name the ink of the colour like the first example. And you are done with the experiment. As simple as that.
Appendix III
Appendix IV
Raw Data
Appendix V
Standard Deviation
Sd= √((∑d2 / N)-d)
=√((321.13/20)-3.724)
=3.51
Calculated Value
t= d/(sd/√(N-1)
=3.724/3.51(√20-1)
=3.724/(3.51/4.36)
=3.724/0.805
=4.626
Degree of freedom-df=N-1
=20-1
=19
Appendix VI
Debrifing
Dear Participants,
Thank you for taking part in my experiment. The aim of my research is to show how powerful our automatic process of reading is and how it can also interfere with our mind. My hypothesis is that naming the ink of the colour that is incogruent will take longer time than naming the congruent ink of the colour due to interference. The first experiment or expeiment 1 is incongruent and the second experiment or experiment 2 is congruent words. I have not informed you of this because you may only read the word rather than the colour of the ink. And for that I hope you do no take it as decption. Once again thank you for taking the time to participate in my experiment and if there is any question about my research, you are free to ask me anytime.
Sincerely,
Lacy
