The Stroop experiment tests the ability to name the ink color of colored words under conditions where the word meanings and ink colors varied. The dependent variable, that which can be measured, is the time that it took each subject to accomplish each conditioned task, and the independent variable being the different task conditions. The different conditions were marked and defined as follows:

A. Words written in their corresponding colors, known as the strong Stroop

B. Mismatched colored words written in the color of ink of the word to follow, known as negative priming

C. Incongruent ink colored words, known as the weak Stroop

D. Ink colored irrelevant words, know

A B C D E

Mean 14.55 37.38 31.75 22.25 20.5

The study examined the hypothesis that the greater the interference required in the condition, called the weak Stoop, the more amount of time it would take to read. Therefore, the predicted pattern of conditions from fastest to slowest would be A, E, D, C, and B.

E. Ink colored XXX's, known as neutral patterns

There are circumstances encountered everyday that require the need to switch attention back and forth between two or more stimuli. The need to focus or divide attention is largely determined by the demands of the user's tasks. Such as, driving a car while talking on a cell phone. There are trade-offs in attention requirements, some automatic in nature, others need deliberate focus to accomplish. An argument could be made for an additional experiment by changing the font size, or by using color overlays that would slightly fade the ink color in varying degrees to see if the Stroop theory could still be validated.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Times Subject, Experiment Stroop, Stroop Ink, Stroop Mismatched, subject 1, color naming, looking word, ink colored, colored words, subject 2, ink color, stroop effect, read words, stroop experiment,
Approximate Word count = 691
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)