Editing Stroop effect (section)

== Original experiment ==
[[File:Stroop stimuli.png|thumb|class=skin-invert-image|Examples of the three stimuli and colors used for each of the activities of the original Stroop article:<ref name="stroop"/>{{Ordered list|color words in black text|color words in incongruent colors|colored squares}}]]

[[File:Stroop-fig1-exp2.jpg|thumb|class=skin-invert-image|Figure 1 from Experiment 2 of the original description of the Stroop Effect (1935). 1 is the time that it takes to name the color of the dots while 2 is the time that it takes to say the color when there is a conflict with the written word.<ref name="stroop"/>]]

The effect was named after [[John Ridley Stroop]], who published the effect in English in 1935 in an article in the ''Journal of Experimental Psychology'' entitled "Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions" that includes three different experiments.<ref name="stroop"/> However, the effect was first published in 1929 in Germany by [[Erich Rudolf Jaensch]],<ref name="Jaensch" /> and its roots can be followed back to works of [[James McKeen Cattell]] and [[Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt]] in the nineteenth century.<ref name="pmid5328883"/><ref name="pmid2034749"/>

In his experiments, Stroop administered several variations of the same test for which three different kinds of stimuli were created: Names of colors appeared in black ink; Names of colors in a different ink than the color named; and Squares of a given color.<ref name="stroop"/>

In the first experiment, words and conflict-words were used. The task required the participants to read the written color names of the words independently of the color of the ink (for example, they would have to read "purple" no matter what the color of the font). In experiment 2, stimulus conflict-words and color patches were used, and participants were required to say the ink-color of the letters independently of the written word with the second kind of stimulus and also name the color of the patches. If the word "purple" was written in red font, they would have to say "red", rather than "purple". When the squares were shown, the participant spoke the name of the color. Stroop, in the third experiment, tested his participants at different stages of practice at the tasks and stimuli used in the first and second experiments, examining learning effects.<ref name="stroop"/>

Unlike researchers now using the test for psychological evaluation,<ref name="Golden">{{cite book|title=Stroop Color and Word Test: A Manual for Clinical and Experimental Uses|last=Golden|first=CJ|publisher=Skoelting|year=1978|location=Chicago, Illinois|pages=1–32}}</ref> Stroop used only the three basic scores, rather than more complex derivative scoring procedures. Stroop noted that participants took significantly longer to complete the color reading in the second task than they had taken to name the colors of the squares in Experiment 2. This delay had not appeared in the first experiment. Such interference were explained by the automation of reading, where the mind automatically determines the [[semantic]] meaning of the word (it reads the word "red" and thinks of the color "red"), and then must intentionally check itself and identify instead the color of the word (the ink is a color other than red), a process that is not automated.<ref name="stroop"/>