The following on-line experiment demonstrates a phenomenon which is known as the "Stroop Effect" (after Mr. Stroop, the guy who first discovered it). Instead of telling you what the Stroop Effect is, I will let you experience it firsthand. It should become fairly obvious what it is, but it will involve a little bit of work on your part.
1. Subjects and materials: Ideally, you should have a friend be the subject for this experiment, but if you want to do it by yourself, that's okay, too. No matter who does the experiment, though, you will need a stopwatch.
2. Measures: You will be using the stopwatch to time how long it takes your subject to perform a certain reading task. The specific task will vary for each page in the experiment, but you should start timing as soon as the web page opens completely and stop timing once the subject has finished the task.
3. Results: After the subject has finished the reading task for a particular page, write down how long it took the subject to perform the task. The tasks will normally take a few seconds to complete. Your recording times may be as precise as you wish.
4. Discussion: There are six tasks (pages) in total in this experiment; once you finish the last task, you will be taken to a page which describes the variables in this experiment, how you should report your results (if you want extra credit) and what (if anything) the Stroop Effect might have to do with topics we've discussed in class.
The next page will give you instructions about the first reading task.
Good luck and have fun--