Can you quickly identify the colors of these Chinese characters?
This phenomenon was first discovered by American psychologist J. Ridley Stroop in 1935, and named Stroop effect after him.
In Stroop experiment, subjects were divided into interference group and non-interference group. The subjects in the non-interference group need to judge the color of the box; Participants in the interference group need the color of words, and the meaning information of words is inconsistent with the color information, such as green "red". The data shows that (the horizontal axis represents the time required for color judgment), when the subjects judge the color of the box, it takes an average of 63.3 seconds for 100 tasks; However, when judging words with inconsistent semantic information and color information, such as green "red", the average time spent per word is 1 10.3 seconds, an increase of 74%.
Why is this? There is still much controversy about the mechanism of Stroop effect, and one of the common explanations is automation theory.
Each word contains information about color and meaning, such as
or
According to the automation theory, the process of recognizing semantic information in our brain belongs to automatic processing, and there is no need for intentional participation. The process of identifying color information belongs to control processing and needs conscious control to complete. When the two conflict, because semantic information belongs to automatic processing, even in the process of recognizing color information, we will automatically recognize the meaning of words, which will interfere with color recognition. At this time, our judgment on color will be slower.
With the deepening of research, the classic Stroop paradigm has evolved into various variants and has been applied to various research and practice.
For example, the "day and night" test for children can be used to test children's inhibition and control ability. This task requires children to say "night" when they see pictures of the sun and "day" when they see pictures of the moon. In this test, children need to suppress the conflict between task goals and visual information. For children aged 3-4, the correct answer rate is relatively low. When they see the picture of the sun, they can't help but say a few words about the corresponding "daytime" of the sun.
During the Cold War, Stroop paradigm was also used to see through Soviet spies.
Please say the colors of the following words quickly:
Is it easy for you? But Soviet spies don't think so. They will be disturbed by the meaning of words, slow down their cognitive speed and expose clues. You can't speak Russian, but you are honest when you react.
Stroop effect can also be used to diagnose some mental diseases. For example, for people who are prone to depression, it takes longer to judge the color of negative emotional words than neutral emotional words. This paradigm is called emotional Stroop paradigm, and its mechanism is different from the traditional lexical color Stroop paradigm. The reason why people who are prone to depression need longer time to judge the color of negative emotional words may be because negative emotional words are more related to themselves, so when judging the color, the meaning of the words themselves takes up more attention resources, which leads to a decrease in reaction speed.