Brain Teaser: Stroop Effect

Enjoy a good brain teaser every now and then? If you said yes to this then I dare you to take a chance at this brain teaser. The object of this exercise is to say the name of the color the word is printed in, not what the word says. The second part of this brain teaser is you must say it at a normal speaking pace.  I will even give you three tries to get through it without slowing down. Can’t seem to get it? Do not worry, you are not the only one having trouble. The better question is; how can this be so difficult? This brain teaser is actually part of what is called “The Stroop Test.”

If Stroop has a test, then what is the actual effect you ask? Well, the Stroop effect is an example of the interesting case where the brain’s reaction time actually slows down when it has to deal with conflicting information. This delayed reaction time is happening because of a processing delay that is caused by competing functions in your brain. This effect is named after John Ridley Stroop who published a paper back in 1935 but the effect had been studied abroad before Stoop’s publishing’s.

So what does all that mean exactly? It basically means in this brain teaser there is a conflict between what we read and what we perceive. Yellow should not be green. Red should not be blue. This sort of illusion also happened in our Test for the Sharp Minded as well. It is also possible that this task is difficult because it requires both hemispheres of our brain to work together. This brain teaser causes both sides of your brain to work at the same time and that is not something that is usually done. Some theories state that the brain reads words faster than it recognizes colors. So when you go to say the color your mind has already read the word, crazy right? After several attempts of the same pattern you may be able to say it without stopping, but change up the words and colors you would have to start all over again. It is an interesting feeling to have your brain actually fight it out with your mouth, I myself came up with words and colors I do not believe even exist.

The great part about this test is it doesn’t just come in words and colors. This brain teaser can actually be done numerous ways and each is just as difficult to do. I have seen some where they are using shapes and colors with mismatched shape names and other colors underneath and you must again attempt to say what shape is printed and the color it is printed it. No matter the use of colors, words, shapes, or symbols the Stroop Test has the same results across the board. This is just another fun brain teaser to do with your friends and see who comes up with the weirdest words and colors.