Stroop Colour - Word Test

2002, vol. 32, no. 1 45

INTRODUCTION

The psychologist's arsenal offers hundreds of psychodiagnostic

methods based on differences in origin,

orientation, age, etc. It is also obvious that while some

of them are highly objective, valid and reliable, others

- taking into account their psychometric features - are

not so worthy of inclusion. After a closer look at

psychodiagnostics, we are able to ascertain that together

with newly developed methods, psychologists

also use methods that originated some decades ago

(e.g. The Rorschach Inkblot Method). The presented

report is dedicated to a test that was introduced into

professional practice relatively long time (almost seventy

years) ago, but which could be, in our opinion,

ranked as a part of the limited "golden fund" of the

psychodiagnostic tools, the exceptional diagnostic and

scientific values of which cannot be denied.

STROOP COLOUR-WORD TEST

According to Daniel (1983) many researchers study

the influence of different psychosocial factors, burden

and stress on humans and the possibilities of how to

evoke (by means of appropriate psychological methods)

experimental stressful situations and assess the

degree of resistance of examined persons. This author

stresses the fact that in the field of perceptional stress,

the Stroop colour-word test is considered to be one of

the most suitable methods. Its components are subtests

of quick reading, identifying colours and interference.

When implementing the classic form of the Stroop

colour-word test, the subject is initially required to

read words representing names of some basic colours,

then he/she tries to quickly name the colours of, for

example, small rectangles and at the end he/she goes

through the so-called subtest of interference. The

subtest of interference is based on the assumption that

looking at the name of a colour which is other than

what the actual colour is (e.g. the word red is written

in green), the subject strongly tends to read the name

instead of saying the colour in which the word is written

(which is what the instruction requires). When

reading quickly, the person gets into a conflict-filled

stressful situation because the answer is influenced by

the learned reaction (in this case by the tendency to

read words, not to name the colours).

It can be said that the classic form of the Stroop

colour-word test was the most used variant for a long

time, even though new forms were gradually introduced

in practice. Houwer et al. (1994) suggest that at

present the dominant variant is probably the one where

the stimuli are pictures of common objects with a word

printed across. It is being realised that the time needed

to name the picture is longer if the word (distractor

word) represents a different object. According to

the mentioned authors, the success of the pictureword

variant is not difficult to explain: the colour and

word combination offers only a limited set of colours,

however the picture-word variant allows to choose out

of a great number of semantic categories and the

relationship between the picture and the word can be

determined with greater flexibility.

THE STROOP COLOUR-WORD TEST IN PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOMEDICINE

Emil Љiљka

Faculty of Physical Culture, Palackэ University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

Submitted in December, 2001

The presented report is focused on the Stroop colour-word test. The test was first introduced into professional

practice almost seventy years ago and it became a part of the limited "golden fund" of psychodiagnostic tools.

The introduction outlines important studies based on research works on the different aspects of the method itself

(interference effect, validity, reliability, etc.) followed by detailed information on the use of the Stroop colour-word

test for research in human psychophysiological reactivity under experimental stress conditions. The conclusion is

a summary of the author's research, confirming that the Stroop colour-word test is an important experimental

stressor and that during its administration, the subjects showed evident changes in the autonomic modulation of

heart rate (predominance of sympathetic activity over parasympathetic). These changes can be monitored by

spectral analysis of heart rate variability.