While he devoted most of his life to Christianity, John Ridley Stroop will be most remembered for his contribution to psychology.
Born the second youngest of six children in 1897, he spent his early years on his family farm in Tennessee. Health concerns meant he wasn’t able to help much with farm duties, and so Stroop developed his mind. He excelled at school, graduating top of his class, and went on to study experimental psychology and education.
His work in psychology continued a line of research that began when Wilhelm Wundt asked his student James Cattell to look into colour naming and colour-word reading. Stroop tested people on their ability to name the colour of words which themselves spelled different colours — for instance, when the word “red” is printed in red, and the word “green” is printed in blue, people are quicker to recognise red than blue.
To try for yourself, go through this list and try to name only the colour of each word, not the words themselves:
Chances are, you took a little extra time to identify the colours when the word spelled a different colour. It doesn’t need to be much, but when they don’t match, a little…
