PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 1

UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER - FACULTY OF LIFE AND HEALTH SCIENCES

School of Psychology

Student ID number B00860143

Module title Cognitive Psychology

Module code PSY 309

 
Due date 21/04/2023 Submission date 20/04/2023
 
Allowed word count 2000 Your word count 2114

Is this a resubmission? No
 

Plagiarism 
 
I declare that this is all my own work and does not contain unreferenced material copied
from any other source.  I understand the policy and definition of plagiarism used by the
University and the programme (as explained in the programme handbook). If it is shown that
material has been plagiarised or I have otherwise attempted to obtain an unfair advantage
for myself or others, I understand that I may face sanctions in accordance with penalties as
determined by the University.  A mark of zero may be awarded and the reason for that mark
will be recorded on my file. 

 
Mark an X in the box to confirm the above statement.                   
 

Date:
 
NOTE: Your work will not be marked unless you have completed this section. 
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 2

An analysis of the overall impact of congruency and incongruency when completing a

Stroop Task.
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 3

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to look at the variance in reaction times between

gender and the congruent and incongruent conditions by using the Stroop task. There were

114 participants of Year 2 psychology degree students involved in this task with a repeated

measures design which collected data using descriptive statistical methods and mixed

repeated methods ANOVA which was used to analyse participant response times, gender, and

the three degrees of congruency, low incongruency, and high incongruency between the

interaction between coloured words and ink colour. The task required for participants to

disregard the actual word, and to identify the colour of the ink by looking at coloured words.

The findings suggest, there were less errors made and response times were greater in the low

incongruency condition in comparison to the high incongruency condition. The probability

that the outcomes were the result of a level of significance was p<.05 suggesting that the

results can be interpreted as they are.

Introduction

The objective of this study was to establish how the Stroop task tests a person’s

managing of information and the reaction time that the brain has over the automatic and

controlled processing when completing this task. The task specifies the difference between

the times that congruent and incongruent stimuli require a response. The Stroop task, along

with dichotic listening, is regarded as one of the gold standards for measuring attention both

inside and outside of cognitive psychology (MacLeod, C. M., 1992). It offers a perspective

on awareness because there is a strong variance between the repeated but incorrect response
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 4

of reading the word name (i.e., green) and the appropriate response to the colour of the text

(i.e. blue).

Bondi et al., (2002) states that the original version of the task, participants were timed

on how quickly they could recite words that were the names of colours, name the colour of

ink patches, and name the colour of the ink in which words of different colours were printed

implying that participants' slower response times when naming the colour of the ink of non-

congruent colour words than when reading words that are the names of colours or naming the

colour of ink patches indicate the effects of response inhibition. According to the theory of

selective attention, identifying colours demands more attention than reading words. As a

result, naming a colour requires more concentration from the brain, which adds a little extra

time to the process (Ruhl et al., 2023). Frings et al., 2010 states the Stroop effect is a

phenomena in which individuals react more quickly to neutral than to negative word stimuli

due to the ink colour, which may be an indication of a rapid and instinctive allocation of

attention to negative stimuli.

Each of these studies are relevant to our research, which is to establish whether the

low-level processing colour word Stroop task has an overall impact of congruency on

response time, if gender has an overall impact on response time and if there is significant

interaction between congruence and gender on response time.

PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 5

Methodology

Design

A controlled task was used for this research to study cognitive control to investigate

selective attention, processing speed, impact of accuracy and automatic or controlled

cognitive processes. The mean of the effect of the response times of the Stroop task

performance was estimated using repeated measures, between-subjects and within-subjects

using MANOVA, which was able to analyse participant response times, gender, and the three

degrees of congruency, low incongruency, and high incongruency.

Participants

For this Stroop task, 114 Year 2 psychology student participants participated to test

the overall impact of congruency and incongruency while completing the task. The inclusive

criteria for this study were there was 90 females and 24 male participants with their ages

ranging from 18 to 50. Students were asked to complete a Stroop Task within their lab class

which determined congruency and incongruency between the interaction between coloured

words and ink colour.

Ethical regulations and informed consent were obtained from each participant who

took part in the study, specified that participants will remain anonymous and any disclosed

information would stay confidential. It has also been made aware to participants that taking

part in this study is voluntary and are under no obligation to complete it (See Appendix 1).

The Stroop task allows for participant withdrawal at any time, but once data has been

submitted, it cannot be modified.

PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 6

Materials

The Stroop task was a controlled task which was performed using the gorilla platform

on a computer with 114 participants who were second year psychology student’s ability to

participate in the interaction between coloured words and ink colour was tested by measuring

them in three different conditions. This includes congruent and low and high incongruency

which assesses the participants overall performance with the Stroop task. Using this platform

allowed to assess the overall impact of accuracy and response times which lead to either

congruent or incongruent conditions between the participants.

Procedure

Using the online platform Gorilla, The Stroop task was completed by 114 student

participants in which it was accessed via a link to complete a series of short questions about

the applicant before completing the online experiment (See Appendix 2). Within this task it

consisted of 3 practice trials followed by 3 conditions which included 20 trials in each

condition. The first task was to match the colour of the word which indicates to click on the

colour of the word but to ignore the colour of the text (See Appendix 3). This is to test low

incongruency of a participant who is able name the word colour but mismatch it with the

colour of ink. The second task consisted of instructions for that condition so when the task

asked for the colour of the word, which requires ignoring the colour of the text, it is based on

what the actual word is (See Appendix 4). This is to test the high incongruency of a

participant who is able to name the text colour but mismatch it to the colour of ink. These two
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 7

tasks assess the incongruence of a participant and the reaction times and increased errors

within the tasks. The final task involved corresponding the colour of the text, (i.e., ‘Blue’

button for the blue text. This tests the congruence of a person where they agree that the

meaning of a word and its font colour is the same.  Once the data was submitted, the

participant got a final score, and the data has been recorded by the gorilla system.

Results

The interpretation of these results has been collected using descriptive statistical

methods and mixed repeated methods ANOVA to analyse the response times, congruency

and gender of the Stroop task. With using the repeated mixed ANOVA, data must adhere to

five assumptions and that they are not violated to provide a valid result. The data gathered

during this study satisfied four of the five assumptions. Before beginning the data analysis, it

was confirmed that assumptions 1 and 2 had not been violated. This is validated as the

congruency score from this study is an interval variable, measurable at a continuous basis.

The tested data had to be categorised into two or more classification groups, with the level of

congruency and the colour of the words as the independent variables.

For the final 3 assumptions, SPSS was used to test these. With assumption 3, an

outlier was evident in a boxplot of data from each of the three conditions and was identified

by a dot that extended the plot's whiskers, rejecting the presumption that outliers were absent.

The resiliency of ANOVA allows it to handle and enable this type of violation even though

the assumption was not met. For assumption 4 and 5, the Levene’s test for homogeneity of

variances was used to prove that the statistics was not violated. The assumptions of this

method including the independent observations, the normality and the sphericity are
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 8

examined. As the data collected was interval, the skewness and kurtosis where over 2 so

normal distribution was not assumed. It should approximately follow a normal distribution.

The Levene’s test was carried out to test the Homogeneity of Variance which resulted in that

it met the assumption that it was non-significant with results of p >.05. The Mauchly test of

sphericity has no significant effect as sig = <.001. As this assumption has not been violated,

the results can be interpreted in their present form. If this had of been significant, results may

be corrected with the Greenhouse-Geisser correction.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of within subjects of congruency response times

N M SD Skewness Kurtosis

Interference Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic

Congruent RT 114 40984.96 8694.74 1.72 4.64

Incongruent Low RT 114 49856.28 28304.40 4.43 24.44

Incongruent High RT 114 46549.72 13539.64 1.92 5.01

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics, using repeated measures, between-subjects

and within-subjects using MANOVA. The participant response times were analysed along

with congruency, gender, and the three degrees of congruency, low incongruency, and high

incongruency. The results attained emphasised that there was a significant main effect in

congruent and low incongruent conditions, t(113)=-3.71,p<.01. Also, it identified a

statistically significant difference between the congruent and the high incongruency

conditions, t(113)=-6.14, p<,001, The conditions of low incongruency and high incongruency

did not differ in a way that was statistically significant t(113)=1.44, p=.153.
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 9

These results imply that the main is not dependent on the degree of incongruity but

solely with differences between congruent and incongruent stimuli. A Bonferroni correction

was applied, decreasing the p-value to p.016 and establishing a stricter criterion, in order to

account for the increased likelihood of type 1 errors when performing repeated statistical

analyses on the same data set. After this Bonferroni adjustment, the two statistically

significant t-test results remained significant.

Figure 1: A line graph showing the mean score between the three conditions.

The calculated marginal means for the three test conditions are presented in Figure 1,

which illustrates how differently males and females performed on the various Stroop tests.

Figure 1 presents that there is a significant effect of low incongruency between male and

females. Statistically the effect of interaction between gender and congruence in response

time is F(1.23,137.63)=1.374, p=.250 which is significant as the two lines from the graph

interacted in the high incongruency condition. The significant main effect of gender on
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 10

response time is F(1,112)=.514, p=.475 and the significant main effect of congruence in

response time F(1.23,137.63)=4.48, p=.025. These finding imply that when participants were

placed under two different conditions, it demonstrated the effect of the Stroop task and

confirms the assumptions of the hypothesis. Comparing the reaction times of individuals in

the congruent condition to those in the incongruent condition, it was observed that the

congruent condition participants had significantly reduced reaction times compared to

incongruent participants with male participants response times a lot lower than females.

Discussion

According to this study's findings, which are consistent with previous

ones, the results from this task illustrate that impact of incongruency was higher than

congruency. As Ruhl et al., (2023) hypothesised naming a colour requires more concentration

from the brain, which increases additional time to the activity. Comparing the response time

of participants in the congruent condition to those in the incongruent condition, it was

observed that the congruent condition participants had significantly lower reaction times,

with the reaction time for the incongruent condition significantly higher in females than in

males. There has also been an interaction between high incongruency in participants.

The main limitation of this study was the sample bias. Since the participants were all

psychology students, the results cannot be generalised to public society. As a result, the

findings are unreliable with only 24 males participating in this study, compared to 90

females, which can be heavily analysed for its gender bias. Male participants demonstrated

faster response times than female participants, which had a confounding impact on the

results. As the sample size was not equal, it was unable to generalise the results gained.
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 11

Another limitation is how uncontrollable factors, like interference from sound and light,

could have reduced response times and increased the likelihood of errors.

To make the results more reliable, improvements are necessary, which includes a

similar sample size in gender that would increase the validity and generalisation of this study

due to important discrepancies between male and female. Also, interference can be assessed

in addition to reaction times to further this investigation. The validity would increase as a

result of the improved accuracy of the outcomes including a broader age range would

increase the reliability and contribute to enhancing this factor as age might influence attention

while doing the task.

PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 12

References

Bondi, M. W., Serody, A. B., Chan, A. S., Eberson-Shumate, S. C., Delis, D. C.,

Hansen, L. A., & Salmon, D. P. (2002). Cognitive and neuropathologic correlates of Stroop

color-word test performance in alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology, 16(3), 335–343.

https://doi.org/10.1037/0894-4105.16.3.335

Frings, C., Englert, J., Wentura, D., & Bermeitinger, C. (2010). Decomposing the

emotional Stroop effect. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(1), 42–49.

https://doi.org/10.1080/17470210903156594

MacLeod, C. M. (1992). The Stroop task: The "Gold Standard" of attentional

measures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(1), 12–14.

https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.121.1.12

Ruhl, C., & Analyst B.A., C. R. M. A. (2023, February 14). Stroop effect experiment

in psychology. Simply Psychology. Retrieved April 15, 2023, from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/stroop-effect.html
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 13

Appendix

Appendix 1

Appendix 2
PSY309 Cognitive Psychology 14

Appendix 3

Appendix 4