The Human Mind

De-Automatizing the Reading during a Stroop Task

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Introduction
An evolution in the field the psychology befell in 1935 as John Ridley Stroop presented the
concept of Stroop effects, in which the partakers are requested to recognize the name of the color
of ink written, rather than focusing on the meaning of the color. An observation was generated,
according to which, it was found difficult to name the color of incongruent word such as BLUE
printed red, while congruent words are easy to catch such as BLUE printed blue. It measures the
ability of an individual to response in different conflicting situations. To analyze the level of
attention of an individual many practitioners use the Stroop task effect (Geukes, Gaskell and
Zwitserlood, 2015).
The social concept of priming have a tendency to initiate an automatic behavior based on the
concept of awareness and consciousness. Before the execution of the Stroop task, partakers were
well-informed and primed regarding the concept of dyslexia, as it is a disorder in which the
patient confront difficulty in reading, learning and interpreting words, whereby there is no such
effect on the intellects of the individual. The Stroop effect were enormously reduced after the
priming of dyslectic person (Cacioppo, et al, 2003).
The study reveals that, an individual takes a lot of time to respond when the name of the color
and the color font is contrasting and vice versa. Many aspects of the psychological disorders
have been investigated under the measurement of Stroop task including Anorexia, Schizophrenia
and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. With the passage of time, the color identification
test has been modified auditory, stimulating, emotional and numeric variables as well. In this
study, we are going to discuss that whether it is possible to de-automatize the process of reading
by instructing people to focus their attention on the last letter in the word presented during a
Stroop task (Schmidt, 2007).

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Design
The design which is used is a repeated measure, where congruent and incongruent variables
have been utilized, in which semantic and non-semantic words have been used. 8 variables of
different types were offered and presented to 16 partakers. Throughout the test, congruence
was randomly distributed among the participants. For each partaker, the time of reaction was
measured for each and every stimulus.
Participants
A group of 16 students from high school participated in the Stroop task for the laboratory
practical, who were from different nationalities. Both male and female students were offered
with the identical stimuli, they themselves tried and tested it and the domino effects were
then assembled by them as well.
Procedure
On individual basis, the participants were tested, before the beginning of the test, the information
and instructions were viewed on the screen. Each participant was asked to react as promptly and
quickly as possible, as all the 16 partakers were given the stimuli subsequently. They were asked
to identify the color with focus on the last letter and then press the key as per the requirement on
the computer. Each time the results and the time of reactions were different, as variance in the
congruence were recorded throughout the test (Bugg and Jacobby, 2008).
It was observed that most of the students took longer when they were given the task to deautomatize the reading in which the instinctive process is controlled through consciousness and
cognizance, each time the response was variant, as few were responding faster with 616.8745ms,

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and few were very slow with 910.8710ms, as they were unable to focus their complete attention
on the last letter of the word during the Stroop task. Another similar test was conducted
previously, and the results were more or less similar to this experiment, as it was hypothesized
that in the beginning it will take long for a participant to respond in focusing but with the passage
of time, the de-automatization was enhanced to a great extent (Dumas, Huguet and Ayme, 2005).
In a nutshell, it can be said that the cognitive system of a human being is very much successful
and effective as the whole mind is concentrated on focusing on a particular point, as the
automatic process can be influenced through cognitive means, in which the awareness is
acquired through the process of thoughts and ideas. Through empirical study we can now
conclude the experiment which states that if the individual is able to focus on the last letter of the
word with great emphasis, the de-automatization of reading is attainable.

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References
Dumas, F., Huguet, P., and Ayme, E. (2005). Social Context Effects in the Stroop Task: When
Knowledge of Ones Relative Standing Makes a Difference. Current Psychology Letters, 16(2).
Cacioppo, J. T., Berntson, G. G., Lorig, T. S., Norris, C. J., Rickett, E., & Nusbaum, H. (2003).
Just Because You're Imaging The Brain Doesn't Mean You Can Stop Using Your Head: A Primer
and Set of First Principles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 650-661.
Schmidt, J. R. (2007). The Stroop Effect: Why Proportion Congruent Has Nothing to Do with
Congruency and Everything to Do with Contingency. Waterloo, ON: University of Waterloo.
Geukes, S., Gaskell, M. G., and Zwitserlood, P. (2015). Stroop Effects from Newly Learned
Color Words: Effects of Memory Consolidation and Episodic Context. Frontiers in Psychology,
6, 278.
Bugg, J. M., and Jacobby, L. L. (2008). Multiple Levels of Control in the Stroop Task. Memory
and Cognition, 36(8), 1484-1494.
Raz, A., Kirsch, I., Pollard, J., and Nitkin-Kaner, Y. (2006). Suggestion Reduces the Stroop
Effect. Psychological Science, 17(2), 91-95.
Goldfarb, L., Aisenberg, D., Henik, A. (2011). Think the thought, walk the walk Social priming
reduces the Stroop effect. Cognition, 118, 193-200.

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