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You've
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just experienced interference.
If you're like most people, your first inclination was to read the words, 'red, yellow, green...,' rather than the colors they're printed in, 'blue, green, red...'
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The Stroop EffectWhen you look at one of the words, you see both its color and its meaning. If those two pieces of evidence are in conflict, you have to make a choice. Because experience has taught you that word meaning is more important than ink color, interference occurs when you try to pay attention only to the ink color. The interference effect suggests you're not always in complete control of what you pay attention to. |
Bower, B. (1992, May 9). Brother Stroop's enduring effect: A mental task devised nearly 60 years ago still intrigues psychologists. Science News, 141, 312-314.
Stroop, J.R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 643-662.
