Are Your Eyes Playing Tricks on You or Is It Your Mind?

As you look at these words, say the color of the word aloud. Don’t say the word, but say the color of the word.

How’d you do? 

Did you say the colors of the first two rows faster than you said the rest of the rows of colors?

If so, you just demonstrated the Stroop Effect originally developed by John Ridley Stoop in 1929 in German and in 1935 in English.  The Stroop Test measures reaction time, but has also been used in a variety of ways to learn more about schizophrenia, working memory capacity, schizophrenic interference, and frontal lobe function.

If you would like to learn more about this interesting occurrence, use our New Discovery Service  and search for “Stroop effect”.  My search revealed close to 6,000 possible sources for additional information.

While the Stroop Effect is an interesting and useful tool in science and psychology, still I’m wondering what sadistic-minded person decided to create a coffee mug with the Stroop Test on it;  My brain is in too much of a sleepy haze to really handle it when I’m drinking my morning cup of coffee emblazoned with the Stroop Test!