The Stroop Effect

A written word colorful generates two kinds of stimuli: the color itself and the word with its meaning. In the procedures performed by Besner et al. (1997), this conflict was investigated using different levels. Each one of these levels, congruent and incongruent words, all word or single letter colored, pseudohomophone, and non-words, requires a different representation that can help to do the tasks. Analog representations are required for detect the color on a word. The relationship between the color itself (symbol) and the word carrying this color (object) should not be arbitrary, it should be exactly as possible. For the single letter colored condition, the subject should do only the representation of the letter colored and its color,

It is not necessary to make inferences by others representations (implicit representations) to detect colors. Colors are perceived by the visual receptors that we have in the back of the eyes, specifically by the three kinds of cones, each one is maximally sensitive to a different set of wavelengths. As the words have meaning, a semantic representation may also occur. Consequently, an analog representation will take place, relating that meaning with an image. This is a problem for incongruent words because this semantic representation may overlap the analog representation of the color, which leads to Stroop effect. On the other hand, non-words do not have meaning, so their semantic representation are not a problem. In the case of the pseudohomophone condition, a sound based representation is required since the words' meaning do not correspond to colors. These semantic representations can be manipulated if the subject do not pay attention at the word itself and try to see it as a colored object. In fact, this would be the ideal strategy to complete the experiments accurately. If successfully accomplished, this goes against the idea that reading is an automatic process and the semantic activation cannot be