Adam Nowak

Fatimah Muhammad

Sandybel Quintana

Lindsey Shobe

• A common activity of everyday life is identifying and understanding written words whether it is in books, billboards, signs, clothing, or even card games.

• In a Stroop experiment, participants are asked to identify the color of a word.

• The words themselves are colors, e.g. red, purple, brown, and grey. However, the words are written in a different color, other than what the word itself says.

• The purpose is to study if there is a deviation between reaction times when the word and color match, a congruent condition, and when the word and color do not match, an incongruent condition.

HYPOTHESES

PrimaryThe backwards incongruent condition would be the slowest reaction time.

SecondaryThe congruent condition would be the fastest reaction time.

METHOD

Participants• Age: Young adults 18-25

• 19 participants (10 females)

Materials • Dell/75 Htz desktop

• 17inch LCD color monitor

• SPSS

• Keyboard strokes: r, g, y, b

STIMULI

Backwards Congruent

Backwards Incongruent

Sideways Congruent

Sideways Incongruent

Congruent

Incongruent

PROCEDURE

• Practice Trial Run

• Single- letter stimuli

• Real Trial

• 12 trials per condition

• All trials separated with a cue +++

• Conditions were counterbalanced

• Correct response: r, g, y, or b

RESULTS

• A one-way repeated measure ANOVA was calculated comparing the reaction times and a significant effect was found:

[F(1,18)=259.12]

• Significant Results

DISCUSSIONInternal Validity Issues• Stimuli were not completely randomized

• More room for carryover effect

• Three participants participated in similar research

Correlation to Research• Effects of dyslexia on Stroop performance

• Physiological inhibitors (parietal and frontal lobe lesions)

PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONING

• Frontal lobe and the parietal lobe lesions interfere with reaction times

NEXT STEPS• Screen for dyslexia

• Is language a distracter?

• Is the Stroop effect still present with a single-letter incongruency

REFERENCES• Pujol, J., Vendrell, P., Deus, J., Junque, C., Bello, J., Mati-Vilata, J., Capdevila, A. (2001).

The effect of medial frontal and posterior parietal demyelinating lesions on Stroop interference. NeuroImage, 13, 68-75. Doi:10.1006/nimg.2000.0662.

QUESTIONS?