You may have heard of the Stroop effect, and you may have even seen it demonstrated. But can the Stroop effect itself be manipulated? This short demo may show that it can.
In case you're not familiar with the effect, it occurs when you try to say the color a word is printed in, while the word itself names a color (so if you see "RED" you should say "green.") Try it with these short lists. Remember, say the color the word is PRINTED in, not the color named by the word.
Which column was most difficult?
The basic Stroop effect predicts that Columns 2 and 3 will be much harder than Column 1, since reading the name of a different color makes it more difficult for us to say the color of the letters. But if we've replicated a nuance of the effect here, Column 3 should be more difficult than Column 2. Why? It's a process called "negative priming." In Column 3, the color of the letters in a word is named in the word above it ("Black" is printed in purple, "Red"is printed in black, and so on).
Normally when we're "primed" with a word or an image, it's easier to produce that word or related words later on (so "detective" might help us remember "police" in a list like "cat, airplane, telephone, police, museum"). But in theexample above, priming actually acts the opposite way, and makes the task more difficult.
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