Stroop effect

In psychology, the Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When a word such as blue, green, red, etc. is printed in a color differing from the color expressed by the word’s semantic meaning (e.g. the word “red” printed in blue ink), a delay occurs in the processing of the word’s color, leading to slower test reaction times and an increase in mistakes. The effect is named after its discoverer, John Ridley Stroop, and was first noted in an article Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1935.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia