Abstract

The Stroop Effect describes the interference of the automatic process on the speed and accuracy of cognitive performance. The current study manipulated the congruity of the meaning of the words(small, large or non-size-related words) and the font size(small and large). 17 college students participated in the study and each participant was asked to identify the font size of 54 words ignoring the meaning of the words. The results showed that the participants had the slowest response time and correctness when the meaning and the font-size are incongruous. This finding showed evidence that the interference of word meaning worsens the cognitive performance on reporting font size.

Introduction

In J. R. Stroop’s world-famous experiment, participants were asked to report the color of the words by ignoring the meaning of the words. By measuring the correctness of response and the speed of the response, he found pieces of evidence that support the hypothesis: the meaning of the words interferes with the color of the words. Furthermore, this finding also suggested that the inhibition of automatic process slows down the cognitive process. Since the original experiment tested the visual cognitive performance and automatic process, there might be a Stroop effect on other types of the cognitive process, especially in words size recognition.

A research suggests that the Stroop effect also shows in braille reading (Jarjoura & Karni, 2016). This study focused on the cognitive process of tactual modality and it provides evidence that the Stroop effect not only affects the visual cognitive process. This research hypothesized the interference of braille reading slows down the cognitive process of reporting the texture of the braille board correctly. A second hypothesis is that the younger participants will have less cost(interference) and faster reaction time. The experiment used braille reading and all blind participants in the experiment. They were asked to report the texture of the braille embedded board with the interference of the word on the board. The four conditions are baseline(no words), congruous(word-texture congruent), incongruous(word-texture incongruent), and no-word(made up words). The research measured the time of reporting the answer and the correctness of the answer. The result shows that the reaction time in the baseline condition is the fastest and slowest in the incongruous condition. However, in the incongruous condition, the younger participants had faster reaction times, which means the cost(interference) is the least. The accuracy of the congruous condition is significantly highest across all three groups. However, the older participants had more errors in the incongruous condition than the other two groups. The research concluded that older and more proficient braille readers show higher cost(interference) of the automatic process because of years of experience and practice even though they have better ability to discriminate words on the braille board. This research provides support to explore the possibility of the Stroop effect on other cognitive processes.

Another research focused on the cognitive process of learning and it’s a relation to the Stroop effect(Wang, Tang & Deng, 2016). This research also shows that the Stroop effect is not limited to the visual cognitive process. The hypothesis is that the more training of novel symbols the more experience of the Stroop Effect. The participants are native Chinese speakers. The training includes learning Chinese words and novel symbol words. An audio pronunciation of the words was also paired with the words to help with the learning process. The words were put into three conditions: congruous(color words with the same ink color), incongruous(color words with different ink color), and neutral(non-color words with random ink color). The participants were asked to do 2 tasks: report the color of the words by ignoring the meaning of the words; matching the symbol and Chinese words with the pronunciation. The participant’s reaction time and accuracy were tested repeatedly for 2 weeks. The results showed that the reaction time for the congruous condition of both novel symbols and Chinese words was significantly faster than the incongruous condition. However, the overall reaction time decreases throughout the training. There’s no significant difference in accuracy across conditions. The matching task showed significant improvement in accuracy. The research concluded that the interference of the automatic process increased after training even though the familiarity of the words increased. This result supported that training of novel symbols shows the Stroop effect which shows evidence that the Stroop effect shows in other types of cognitive process besides vision.

Inspired by the above two variations of the Stroop test, this paper is interested in exploring the recognition of the font size of the words as a testing automatic and cognitive process. A research shows the font size of the words influences the recognition and learning of the words(Undorf & Zimdahl, 2018). The researchers hypothesized that the words with extreme big or small font size help people to recall the words. The participants were asked to perform a free word recall test(report the words after seeing a list of words) and a lexicon decision test(identify real words and fake words). The words were in multiple different font sizes. During the free recall, after each word was shown, participants were asked to rate the percentage of likelihood to recall the word. The results show that for lexicon test, the reaction time is shorter for bigger font size words and for real words compare to fake words. For both judging percent correctness and the free recall test, the reaction time is negatively correlated to the font size. The research concluded there’s evidence that bigger the font-size the better the memory of the words. The results of this experiment show that recognizing the font-size of the words is a type of cognitive process.

Influenced by variations of the Stroop test, this new experiment continues to focus on the inhibition of the automatic process of influence the cognitive process. The hypothesis of this experiment is the more inhibition of the automatic process, the slower cognitive process and worst cognitive performance. The methods of the study will be asking participants to report the size of the word as quickly as possible. The independent variables of this study are the font-size of the words(large or small), and the meaning of the words(size related or non-size related). The dependent variables are the reaction times in seconds and the accuracy of reporting the size of the words. There will be three conditions in this study: congruous(same font-size and word meaning), incongruous(opposite font-size and word meaning), neutral(non-size related words with random font-size). The study hypothesizes that the incongruous condition will have the slowest reaction time and lowest accuracy, and the congruous condition will have the fastest reaction time and highest accuracy.

Results

The data collected by PsychoPy were transferred and stored in google sheet. Then they were separated into the speed of response and percent accuracy of the response. A paired t-test was performed between each condition(congruous vs incongruous, congruous vs neutral, and incongruous vs neutral). The mean difference, standard deviation difference, standard error and the t value were calculated to help analyze the data. This paper hypothesized the inhibition of the automatic process worsen the cognitive performance which means the incongruous condition has the slowest response time and accuracy. The results showed that the incongruous condition had the slowest response time and the worst percentage accuracy.

For the reaction time, the neutral condition had the fastest time and the congruous condition had the slowest reaction time. Participants’ response times were significantly slower in the incongruous condition (M = 0.444, SD = 0.119) than in the neutral condition (M = 0.440, SD = 0.125) t(17) = -2.589, p = 0.05. Participants’ response times were not significantly different between the incongruous condition (M = 0.444, SD = 0.119) and the congruous condition (M = 0.448, SD = 0.157) t(17) = 0.439, p = N.S. Participants’ response times were not significant between the neutral condition (M = 0.440, SD = 0.125) and the congruous condition (M = 0.448, SD = 0.157) t(17) = 1.018, p = N.S.

For the percentage accuracy, the incongruous condition had the worst accuracy compare to the other two conditions. Participants’ correctness was significantly lower in the incongruous condition (M = 0.922, SD = 0.065) than in the congruous condition (M = 0.977, SD = 0.044) t(17) = 10.835, p = 0.05. Participants’ correctness was significantly lower in the incongruous condition (M = 0.922, SD = 0.065) than in the neutral condition (M = 0.964, SD = 0.071) t(17) = 32.798, p = 0.05. There was no significant difference in correctness between the neutral condition (M = 0.964, SD = 0.071) and the congruous condition (M = 0.977, SD = 0.044) t(17) = 2.035, p = N.S.

The results data showed the incongruous condition had significantly higher responses time and lower accuracy compared to the neutral condition.

Discussion

This current study focused on the Stroop Effect (the inhibition of the automatic process on the speed and accuracy of the cognitive performance) on another cognitive process (Jarjoura & Karni, 2016). More specifically, the experiment investigated the response time and the percentage of correct responses in the following three conditions: congruous(same font-size and word meaning), incongruous(opposite font-size and word meaning), and neutral(non-size related words with random font-size). It was hypothesized that the congruous condition takes the shortest time with the highest percentages of correct responses, and the incongruous condition takes the longest time with the lowest percentage of correct responses.

The results show that for reaction time, the neutral condition is significantly faster than the incongruous condition. However, there’s no significant between the congruous and the neutral condition and the incongruous and the neutral condition. As for the correctness, the congruous and the neutral condition have significantly higher percentages of correct responses than the incongruous condition, and there’s no significant difference between the congruous and the neutral condition. Although it wasn’t supported by this study that the congruous condition positively influenced the cognitive process, there’s evidence that the incongruous condition negatively influenced the cognitive performance. Furthermore, the Stroop Effect was supported in this experiment that the more inhibition of the automatic process, the worse the cognitive process.

The results of the current study parallelled with a previous study of the Stroop Effect on braille reading which suggested that more experienced braille readers put more effort on the inhibition of automatic process(reading the words) and had worse cognitive performance (reporting the texture of the braille board)(Jarjoura & Karni, 2016). The current results aligned with the results of the previous study. Both studies found significant interferences with the cognitive process by automatic process. This previous study also brought up the possibility of the Stroop Effect on other types of cognitive process. Both studies identified new types of cognitive process: font-size recognition and braille reading.

To explore different types of cognitive process, the current study included a learned cognitive process(recognition of words). The results provided evidence that for a learned cognitive process, people showed the Stroop effect, and this finding is in similarity to a previous study of the Stroop Effect on novel symbol learning(Wang, Tang & Deng, 2016). The previous study focused on a learned cognitive process of novel symbols learning with native language learning as the control condition, and it suggested that the cognitive process was slowed down when the learner became more proficient in the novel symbol learning. The current study was inspired by it to explore the possibility of the Stroop effect on the learned cognitive process and found the same results as this previous study.

Combining a natural cognitive process and a learned cognitive process, the current study focused on identifying the font-size by ignoring the meaning of the words. The results of the current study support another study which suggested a bigger font size enhances people’s memory of the word(Undorf & Zimdahl, 2018). This previous study suggested that meaning of the words is significantly influenced by the font-size of the word. In the current study, the results showed the font-size of the word is significantly influenced by the meaning of the word. Both studies found a relationship between the meaning and the font-size of the word and suggested the ability to recognize the font-size of the word as a cognitive process.

The result of this study could be generalized to other populations with the ability to recognize the congruency of font-size and the meaning of the words. The participants in the current studies were under similar experimental conditions. Therefore, the replication studies are more likely to find similar results for participants with similar backgrounds, ages, and environments. Given the results of the current study showed a Stroop Effect on font-size recognition and aligned with two previous studies, there could be a similar effect on other types of cognition process. However, the two previous studies had participants from different age groups, so the results were more generalized than the current study.

One limitation could be neutral words. There was a significant difference between the congruous and the neutral condition in the Stroop Test(Jarjoura & Karni, 2016), but this was not found in the current results. The meaning of the neutral words could influence the interpretation of its relativity to the font-size. In the future, we might want to select words that are more abstract. Another confounding variable could be the font size itself. Based on a recent study, people respond to large font size words faster regardless of the meaning of the words(Undorf & Zimdahl, 2018). If this is the case, this could help explain why the response time is not very different across conditions. Because people will respond to large font words faster regardless of the meaning. In the future studies, maybe we can add a medium font size to break the similarity in font size.

To conclude the findings, the current study investigated the Stroop Effect on font-size recognition. The results showed the responses to the font-size of the words were significantly slower and less accurate in the incongruous condition where words and font-size are the opposite. It provided evidence to support the inhibition of the automatic process worsen the cognitive process.

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Reference:

Jarjoura, W., & Karni, A. (2016). A novel Tactile Braille-Stroop test (TBSt). British Journal of Visual Impairment, 34(1), 72–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0264619615612344

Undorf, M., & Zimdahl, M. F. (2018). Metamemory and memory for a wide range of font sizes: What is the contribution of perceptual fluency? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. https://doi-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1037/xlm0000571

Wang, J., Tang, H., & Deng, Y. (2016). Novel symbol learning-induced Stroop effect: Evidence for a strategy-based, utility learning model. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 45(5), 1161–1171. https://doi-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1007/s10936-015-9397-8

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Presentation Slides

Skills - Cognitive Psychology, Experiment Design, Team work, Presentation

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