course materials

1. ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop Effect
ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop
EffectINTRODUCTIONOur knowledge of psychology is continually updated by scientific
observations, experiments, and research conducted in the lab and elsewhere. The
measurement of reaction time—how long it takes for psychological processes to occur in
our brains—has been an important aspect of these inquiries since the emergence of the first
laboratories devoted to psychology in the late 1800s.In this ZAPS lab your reaction times
will be measured. In the Experience section you will take a form of the Stroop test—a task
designed to measure conflicts between two sensory inputs that is perhaps the mostly
widely used and important of all cognitive tests. Cognitive tests examine cognition, which is
the mental activity that includes thinking and the understanding gained from thinking, such
as memory and intelligence. The Stroop cognitive test is based on the Stroop effect, which
you will learn more about after taking the test. But before that, try this quick challenge.Can
you look at the word in the middle of the following screen without thinking about its
meaning? ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop
Effect MIDTERMIt is impossible, right? No matter how hard you try, you cannot help but
process the meaning of familiar words. When you learned how to read as a child, you
probably needed to devote a considerable amount of attention to sounding out new words
and learning their meanings. But with time and practice, reading became automatic and no
longer required conscious attention to perform. Learning to read and understand language
is one example of a cognitive function.How about color? While you might have some
recollections of learning how to read, it isn’t likely that you can remember seeing a color
without recognizing what it was. For example, when you see the followingyou recognize
that it is red. How did you know that? Was it through the same process by which you
recognized the meaning of the word midterm?You will find out more about how you are
able to recognize word meanings and colors—as well as about how measuring mental
reaction time helps us better understand psychological processes—as you move through
this lab. Click on the Experience tab (at the top of the page) to proceed to the next
section.ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop Effect InstructionsIn each trial of this ZAPS
lab, a single word will appear on the screen. Your task is to indicate as quickly as possible
the color of the text used to “print” the word on the screen, by clicking or tapping one of the
numbered buttons you’ll see below the word, using the following
key:Button 1: BLUE Button 2: RED Button 3: BLACKFor example, if you saw pig, you
would click or tap the button labeled “2” as quickly as possible, to indicate that the color of

2. the word is RED. ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectThis won’t be as easy as it
sounds. The words you will be identifying the color of will be the names of colors
themselves: BLUE, RED, and BLACK. To make the task even harder, the words and the colors
will not always match. For example, you might see the word BLACK, in which case you
should click or tap the button labeled “1” to indicate that the word appears in blue. Take a
moment now to memorize what color each button number refers to, as the buttons will not
be labeled during the experimental trials.Before we begin the actual experiment, let’s
try 5 practice trials. For each trial, remember to click or tap one of the buttons to indicate
the printed color of the word:Button 1: BLUE Button 2: RED Button 3: BLACKOn each
trial, what should you indicate as quickly as possible?the number of letters in the word your
favorite colorthe meaning of the word the text color of the wordCorrect!ZAPS experiments
Assignment Stroop Effect ExperienceOkay, we’re ready to begin the experiment. Remember
that your task is to identify the text color of the word you see in each trial, ignoring the
meaningof the word. Here’s the color key one more
time:Button 1: BLUE Button 2: RED Button 3: BLACKYour responses are being timed,
so click or tap a button as quickly as possible in each trial! Trials in which you incorrectly
identify the color or have taken more than 4 seconds, will be repeated.ZAPS experiments
Assignment Stroop Effect Data IntroductionIn Stroop effect experiments, trials where the
color named by the word is the same as the color of the text used for the word (e.g., BLUE)
are called congruent trials. In contrast, trials where the color named by the word differs
from the color of the text (e.g., BLUE) are called incongruent trials.The key question, is, does
it take people longer to respond to incongruent trials than it does to congruent trials? In the
graph you will see next, we average all of the different combinations of words and text
colors to determine the mean response time for both congruent trials (BLUE, RED,
and BLACK) and incongruent trials (BLUE, BLACK, RED, etc.).In the table, we also show
error rates for congruent and incongruent trials. To calculate error rate, we divide the
number of incorrect trials for a condition by the total number of trials for the condition. For
example, if you saw 20 incongruent trials and got two of them incorrect, your error rate
would be 2 / 20 = 10%.Based on your experience in the experiment, do you think your data
will show quicker responses to the congruent or the incongruent trials? Why? ZAPS
experiments Assignment Stroop EffectYou will initially receive full credit for any answer,
but your instructor may review your response later.YOUR DATA· Graph· TableRaw
DataDISCUSSION ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectCongruent trials: words and
colors match.Incongruent trials: words and colors do not match.The typical result of this
Stroop test—as the reference results showed and as you most likely saw in your results in
Your Data section of this ZAPS lab—is that reaction times in the incongruent trials are
higher than reaction times in the congruent trials. Several theories have been proposed to
explain why this Stroop effect occurs. ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectMost of
these theories involve the concept of semantic interference. This basically means being
distracted by the meaning of words. Your brain automatically recognizes the meaning of the
words you see even when the chief task you are given is to recognize the color of the text of
the word. Your mind recognizes the word meaning and the color of the text using different
processes. During incongruent trials, processing word meaning conflicts with the color

3. recognition process, causing you to respond more slowly. Brain imaging evidence for the
Stroop effectReaction time is an indirect gauge of how the brain processes information, but
because it is easily measured, it is still widely studied. However, researchers are now also
able to directly visualize the processing of information by specific parts of the brain through
techniques that are collectively called neuroimaging. We now know much more about the
Stroop effect and other cognitive functions than we did in the past because of advances in
neuroimaging. ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectStudies using neuroimaging
have provided evidence that during a Stroop test the meaning of words is determined in a
part of the brain’s temporal lobe called the Wernicke’s area, while the color of the text is, at
least initially, processed by the visual areas of the occipital lobe. Studies provide evidence
that a third area of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is crucial in evaluating the
two sources of information, ignoring the irrelevant one, and making a decision.ZAPS
experiments Assignment Stroop Effect Applications of the Stroop effectUnderstanding the
Stroop effect should help you understand the broader psychological concept of mental
conflict. You are probably familiar with many examples of conflict, such as the conflict
between your impulses and your goals. As mentioned earlier in this ZAPS lab, the Stroop
effect and Stroop tasks also have many applications in the study and clinical practices of
psychology.For example, in one study, research subjects were hypnotized and told that they
would be seeing meaningless symbols on a cognitive test. When given a Stroop test, they did
not show the typical results and had the same reaction times for congruent and incongruent
trials. In this case, the Stroop test was used to verify the effectiveness of hypnosis. ZAPS
experiments Assignment Stroop EffectThis ZAPS lab was designed to help you better
understand not just Stroop, but related topics that you will encounter as you study
psychology. These include the measurement of reaction time in psychological studies, how
your brain processes information, and how brain imaging has helped us understand the
functioning of the brain and has expanded our psychological knowledge.Suppose we ran
another experiment using the same stimuli used here, but flipped the instructions. That is,
suppose your task was to identify the meaning of the word and ignore the text color. What
would you expect to find when you looked at the response times of such an experiment?
ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectYou will initially receive full credit for any
answer, but your instructor may review your response later.ZAPS experiments Assignment
Stroop Effect LEARNING CHECKAnswer the following questions to complete this ZAPS
activity. Your performance in this section accounts for 10% of your grade.Based on the
ideas presented in this ZAPS lab, under which of the following conditions do you think
participants would be able to most quickly name the color in which the stimuli are written
or drawn?colored words with incongruent color associations
(e.g., grass, banana, sky)incongruent color words (e.g., blue, red, green) ZAPS experiments
Assignment Stroop Effectcolored “blobs” (e.g., , , )Correct!Since these shapes do not have
established meanings, there should be nothing interfering with the process of naming their
colors.You answered the question correctly on your first attempt, so your grade for the
question is 100%.Imagine you are a web designer working on an interactive website. You
need a symbol to indicate to users that they will start a timed task. Based on the ideas
presented in this ZAPS lab, which of the following symbols would be most effective for this

4. purpose?? ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop Effect Correct!To most effectively signal
users to start a task, congruent colors, words, and shapes should be used. In most of the
world, green is used to indicate “GO,” while red is used to indicate “STOP.” The circle is a
neutral shape that does not conflict with the concept of “GO,” unlike the octagon, which is
also associated with “STOP.” ZAPS experiments Assignment Stroop EffectZAPS experiments
Assignment: Stroop Effect ZAPS experiments Assignment: Stroop Effect