The association between visual recollection and cognitive processing amongst college
students
Dana Matthews, Jennifer Pressley and Huntir Terella
April 26, 2015
Abstract
This experimental study was conducted on a group of Penn State students. The
purpose was to evaluate mental processing times. Fifty-two participants gave consent to
be subjected to a Stroop-effect experiment design. Each student was shown a set of cards,
which either displayed the name of a color shown in its correct shade or incorrect shade.
When a color is written and viewed in it’s known shade the participant will have an easier
time recalling the term. This allows for the rough measurement of the visual and mental
processing of a student. The study found that the Stroop-effect causes a significant
conflict between two important cognitive processes of the brain. The purpose of this
essay is to fulfill course requirements for BBH 411W and to stand as a personal sample
of writing, therefore the findings should not be treated as generalized research.
Introduction
A Stroop-like archetype was designed in order to examine Penn State University
students processing times. Meaning, when the definition of a word and the color that
word is shown in are congruent, it is easier for a person to recall the actual color of the
word. For example, if the word “purple” is written in the color purple, it is easier to name
the color of that word. However, if the word “purple” is written in red, it is more
challenging to recall because there is incongruence. This disconnect causes a conflict
between two processes of the brain, word-recognition and color recognition (Luo et al,
2015). Which in turn requires additional processing time for the brain to clarify.
Automaticity is a method of the brain thought to be expressed as involuntary,
unintentional, goal independent, stimuli-driven, fast, efficient, and unconscious (Yang et
al, 2015). When administering the Stroop effect this system is slowed and participants are
prone to making mistakes. Studies have found that participants of all ages suffer from the
Stroop effect (Teo et al, 2015). Therefore, the hypothesis being tested is that if the Stroop
effect is administered to college students they will have trouble recalling the color being
shown to them due to a conflict between two cognitive processes.
The subjects being tested are Penn State University students in a BioBehavioral
health class. These students will have participated in an experiment meant to test their
cognitive processing abilities, this will be done by showing individual students cards that
display the name of a color. Each student is randomly assigned to the control or
experimental group and has to identify 10 cards. The word of the color displayed will
either be congruent with its name or shown in an alternative shade. For instance, the word
“red” will be written in the color blue and so on. Student participants will then be asked
to recall the color (meaning the shade not the word) of the cards they were shown. The
outcome variable will be the measurement of how many colors were recalled correctly.
The direction of effect in this particular experiment is expected to decrease. Meaning, as
the number of cards shown increases the correct recollections of the colors will decrease.
This is due to the fact that two processes of the brain are being conflicted, making it more
difficult for a participant to identify colors and the words of colors separately and
correctly.
Methods
We conducted an experimental study in which students of the spring Bio
Behavioral 411W course were asked to flip a coin in order to be place in a treatment or
control group for a course grade. Before starting the intervention we shared the
following consent message with each student; “We will be showing you a set of cards
that will have written colors on them, We will then ask you to recall which colors were
shown not which colors were written. We will then record how many of the colors you
identified/remembered accurately.” If the student flipped heads they were placed in the
control group. If the student flipped tails they were placed in the experimental/treatment
group. The treatment group received colors of words that differ from their written
meaning and the control group received the colors of words that match their written
meaning. The number of colors recalled correctly by participants was then measured.
More specifically, if they were able to remember the colors written in an alternative color
compared to remembering the colors written in the same color. To test for an association
between these variables, alpha was set at 0.05.in IBM SPSS Statistics version 22 conduct
a Pearson correlation.
Results
Out of the 52 participants, 27 of them were placed in the control group, meaning
the shade of the color was congruent with its name. The mean number of participants that
remembered the color that was shown and not written was 6.96 and the standard
deviation was .759. The minimum number of colors recalled was 5 and the maximum
was 8. There were 25 participants assigned to the experimental group, which were shown
an alternative shade to the color that was written on the card. The mean number of those
who remembered the color and not what was written was 6.32 and the standard deviation
was 1.145. The minimum number of colors recalled was 4 and the maximum was 8. The
p-value was 0.02, which means that there is significant evidence that the Stroop effect
causes a conflict between two cognitive processes in the minds of college students.
Meaning, they will not be able to sufficiently recall colors when they are showed in an
alternative shade.
Figures:
Figure 1: This figure displays the number of correct answers recalled by the control
group.
Figure 2: This figure displays the number of correct answers recalled by the
experimental group.
Discussion
According to the p-value, the results of the Stroop effect experiment are
consistent with our original hypothesis that college students will have trouble recalling
the color being shown to them due to a conflict between two cognitive processes. The
predictor variable, the shade the word is shown in, allows for an assumption that students
will have difficulty due to the Stroop effect. This is because two mental processes are
being conflicted therefore; the mental cognition of participants is being slowed. A
previous study found that a possible explanation for this phenomenon is, the Stroop effect
begins by initiating the anterior cingulate cortex (350–500 ms post-stimulus), then is
proceeded by the activation of the left temporo-parietal cortex which requires extra time
to process word meaning (Liotti, 2000). Overall, the Stroop effect is the measurement or
result of the vitality and flexibility of our attention and cognition (McQueen, 2015). The
mean and graphs, however, suggested the Stroop effect was not significantly represented
in college students. This proposes room for error. The percent error may be due to the
environment the test was given in, the clamorous classroom or the actual set up of the
experiment (not enough cards, too much time, etc.) Another explanation for error was the
open format of the study, students were told they would be asked the color shown not the
written word therefore they knew what to pay attention to. Although, the p-value is an
excellent indication that the experiment was successful and previous research is
consistent with this statistically significant outcome.
References
Liotti, M. (2000, May 1). An ERP study of the temporal course of the Stroop color-word
interference effect. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393299001062
Luo, C., Proctor, R., & Weng, X. (2015). A Stroop effect emerges in the processing of
complex Chinese characters that contain a color-related radical. Psychological
Research, 79(2), 221-229. doi:10.1007/s00426-014-0553-9
McQueen, M., Boardman, J., Domingue, B., Smolen, A., Tabor, J., Killeya-Jones, L., &
... Harris, K. (2015). The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult
Health (Add Health) Sibling Pairs Genome-Wide Data. Behavior Genetics, 45(1),
12-23. doi:10.1007/s10519-014-9692-4
Teo Yong, C., Yusoff, N., & Begum, T. (2015). COPING STYLES AND STROOP
TEST IN NON-CLINICAL SAMPLE: EXPLORING THE ASSOCIATIONS
AND PREDICTORS OF COGNITIVE STYLES. ASEAN Journal Of Psychiatry,
16(1), 90-98.
Yang, Y., Hu, Q., Wu, D., & Yang, S. (2015). Children’s and adults’ automatic
processing of proportion in a Stroop-like task. International Journal Of
Behavioral Development, 39(2), 97-104. doi:10.1177/0165025414556520