Table of ContentsIntroductionObjectiveMethodParticipants and DesignProcedureDiscussionIntroductionConsidering the Stroop Effect, automaticity, and different types of attention, their relationships can help researchers better understand cognitive processes activated in order to correctly identify the desired stimulus. . In recent years, researchers have spent time studying attention and its different types, focused and divided. Attention is defined by the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary as the act or power of thinking, listening, or looking carefully at someone or something (Attention). Focused attention is a person's ability to be presented with 2 or more stimuli at the same time and to correctly and timely direct their attention to the desired stimulus. Being able to focus your attention is very important, especially when taking an exam, reading or studying. Divided attention is focusing on more than one thing at the same time, also called multitasking. A person who does not have the best control over their attention, a person who is often divided, tends to have more difficulty studying and reading than one who can focus their attention. We can test their ability to divide their attention by trying to pat their head and rub their belly simultaneously. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayA factor that plays an important role in attention is automatic processing or automaticity. Automaticity occurs when an activity or process becomes automatic. A process becomes automatic after prolonged exposure to the process. It is these automatic processes that allow you to divide your attention. For a process to become automatic, it must be rapid, not hinder the completion of the process, but improve the individual's ability to complete it; and finally the process must be able to be unavailable to consciousness, to implicit memory, to be entirely automated. Additionally, Shiffrin and Schneider's theory of automaticity asserted that an automatic process requires little capacity, little attention, and is very difficult to change. The text explained that one of the biggest problems with automatic processing stems from the lack of flexibility once a process becomes automatic. Automaticity can be measured by what is called the Stroop effect, which explains why, over the course of their lives, students have automated the process of automatic processing. while reading. Therefore, when asked to identify the color names of words, response times are shorter. Response times are shorter because reading the word is what our brains have been implicitly trained to do, and thus triumphs and inhibits our ability to report the color of the word as accurately and quickly as reading. reading the word. This is especially evident when the color of the word does not match the color of the word name. The process of identifying the color of an object or word is not something a person does every day, whereas reading is something we do everywhere. When you first wake up, you read the clock to know the time. Then you can check your text messages, make coffee, and implicitly read the name of the coffee on the can, cereal box, milk jug, etc. So how do researchers and psychologists use the stroop effect to test divided attention and automaticity? There are different versions of stroop experiments to test the stroop effect. Almost all stroop designs are madein order to test focused attention. This is evident when participants are asked to ignore the meaning of the word to identify the color. At the same time, the stroop effect also tests the automaticity theory that a student participating in a stroop experiment would have faster response times when asked to report the meaning of the word about the color. The diagram above, Process A is a visual explanation of how automatic processing occurs. Process B shows what happens during a stroop experiment. This problem comes from the divided attention mentioned above. Stroop effect tests divided attention by presenting the participant with a conflict with their implicit memory. When the color of the word does not match the meaning of the word and the participant is asked to report the color of the word, the division of attention is what would lead to an increase in response time. However, due to the difficulty of modifying an automatic process, the Stroop effect is designed to cause semantic conflict (Cognition). In accordance with these results, an experiment was conducted to test attention and automaticity. This experiment aimed to see if irrelevant emotional facial expressions disrupted other processes such as color naming, facial recognition, and categorization of emotional words. This study tested the automaticity of facial perception and measured the relationship between other relative goals and the ability to divide and focus attention as well as the ability to be aware of implicit processes. Their results revealed that involuntary, stimulus-driven processes still elicited a response with little or no mindfulness attention. Moreover, this automatic response was studied in more detail, so that the facial expression in response to the judge's emotional stimuli was barely inhibited. They claimed that this was linked to expertise acquired over generations, with humans being implicitly good at tasks such as those mentioned above. This supports the Stroop effect because the Stroop effect refers to a person's inhibited ability to report the color of the word, something that is not automatic, versus something that is, which reads the word (Oxford). Objective The reason one would be interested in testing and measuring the stroop effect is to better understand their ability to focus and divide their attention. The purpose of the stroop experiment in an experimental psychology course at Montclair State University is to perform a replication of the original stroop experiment so that students can fulfill part of their course requirements. It is also beneficial to measure automated behaviors and cognitive psychologists typically use this ability to gain insight into a patient's final behavior. Stroop experiments are designed to elicit and measure automatic responses so that the psychologist can better help their patient through events, even if the patient does not share all information related to the situation. It is hypothesized that the Stroop effect causes people to tend to identify font color faster when the word name and font color are the same and are slower when they are different. It is also hypothesized that responding will be significantly slower for the Stroop-incongruent compared to the congruent control condition. Method Participants and design For each trial, participants saw a word (RED, GREEN, or BLUE) printed in color red, green or blue font. Their task was to classify, as quickly as possible, the color of the font, whatever