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The Stroop Effect on University Students
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Abstract
In this study, I would like to test if the Stroop effect continues to exist amongst this
technological age, with students’ academics being improved constantly. The experiment
focuses on the three task cards with different stimuli. This makes it easier to compare and
contrast the Stroop effect. Eighty-eight students took part in this experiment, 22 being male
and 66 being female, with a mean age of 22.80 years and a standard deviation of 5.81 years.
Based on Cattell (1886), I hypothesised that the Stroop task would take the most time to be
completed, and found a significant difference in time taken for the Stroop task as compared
to the other two tasks. Hence, results are still consistent with the results of past research
studies, despite the vast demographical changes.
Keywords: Stroop test, cognitive interference, colours, words
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The Stroop Effect in University Students
The Stroop Effect was introduced by John Ridley Stroop in 1935. It talks about the
interference, or inhibition, of the cognitive process when coloured words are printed in a
colour different from the word. The task was first used by Jaensch in 1929, however it would
later take on the name of John Ridley Stroop instead (Schiller, 1966). The Stroop Task was
then carried out in many different ways, each using different stimuluses to test for the effect
of the task on the extent of the participants’ cognitive interference.
The effects of cognitive interference were first seen in 1886 by James McKeen
Cattell, who found that it takes twice as long to read (out loud) words that had no connection
with what the word actually was. Usually, the only factor that would contribute to the time
taken is the speed at which one’s speech-organs could be engaged to read these words out
