Color Schemes and the Stroop Effect

Do different color schemes(cool, warm, pastel, primary) have an effect on how long it takes (measured in

seconds) the test subject to complete the Stroop Effect?

By Casey Reed

This experiment was chosen because Human Behavioral Science is an interesting topic and is relevant to daily life, as the conductor and test subjects of the experiment are human.

Hopefully, the experiment accomplished showing how the human brain responds to various color schemes used in the Stroop effect.

Rationale

The Stroop Effect was named after J. Ridley Stroop, who discovered the effect in the 1930s.

The Selective Attention Theory says that an interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading colors does.

Automatization is the instinct to only pay attention to the meaning of a word. After reading for many years, when a person sees a printed word it is hard for them to not read it.

Research

If the five different tests of the Stroop effect has an effect on the time it takes for the test subject to complete each test, then color schemes will effect how the test subject performs as a result of the Selective Attention Theory.

Hypothesis

The four different tests were modified by coloring the words in each test with different colors. The first test was the original Stroop test, the second test used cool colors, the third test used warm colors, the fourth test used pastel colors, and the fifth test used primary colors

Hypothesis

Materials

Item

Test Papers 1-5

Room to test in

Children

Notebook to Record In

Stopwatch

Pencils

Procedure Sheet

Answer Keys 1-5

1.Welcome the participant and ask the participant to take a seat.2.Tell the participant what they will be asked to do: “I am going to show you colored words. Do not pay attention to the meaning of the word, just say the color of the word. Try to go as fast as you can. you will do this fifteen times, three times for each sheet. If you make a mistake, you must correct it before you continue with the test. Tell me when you are ready to begin.”3.Show participant Test Paper 1 and say go; simultaneously start timer.4.Stop timer when participant completes Test Paper 1. 5.Record time in chart6.Repeat steps 3-5 two times7.Repeat steps 3-6 with Test Papers 2-5 8.Thank participant for helping

Procedure

Pictures of Experiment

Test Paper 5

Test Subject 4 preparing to testTest Subject 10 testing

Basic setup of experiment

Data

Data

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AotmF_96nwYMdHBPQmVqc2FJNU5oQXlBdkIzeFZ0SWc&output=html

Data

The problem was “Do different color schemes(cool, warm, pastel, primary) have an effect on how long it takes (measured in seconds) the test subject to complete the Stroop Effect?” The problem was answered as the data clearly showed that varying color schemes affected the time it took for the test subjects to complete the test.

Conclusion

The hypothesis was “If the five different tests of the Stroop effect has an effect on the time it takes for the test subject to complete each test, then color schemes will effect how the test subject performs as a result of the Selective Attention Theory, and it was proven correct because the research showed that each individual Stroop test had a different average time, and some tests had much better averages than others .

Conclusion

Test 5 had the smallest average time, and Test 4 had the largest. The average time it took to read test 4 was 17.6 seconds. The average time it took to read test 5 was 12.46 seconds.

The experiment’s results showed that primary colors were easiest to identify and pastel shades were the hardest.

Conclusion

To improve the experiment, one could create more color schemes and have more trials with more volunteer test subjects. One could have acquire a more accurate time recording device.

Many can benefit from the results of this experiment. Students can use the fact that can most easily recognize primary colors and use these colors to helped them memorize things they may need to know for school. Scientists can also use the results to record the trends and compare it to other data.

Conclusion

For future research, scientists could narrow down the different colors used in each test to provide more detailed results. More trials could be taken from test subjects of different ages to expand the results for more people.

Conclusion