Kelimenin THE INK COLOUR — not what the word says!
Press the button to start
| Read the ink colour | Ignore what the word actually says. |
| Tap your answer | Choose the matching colour. |
| Start | Begin the timed test. |
The Stroop test shows you a colour word printed in a different colour of ink, and asks you to name the ink rather than the word. The word RED written in blue should get the answer blue. It sounds trivial and it is genuinely difficult, because reading is so automatic that the wrong answer arrives in your head first.
John Ridley Stroop published the effect in 1935 and it has been a staple of psychology ever since, because it demonstrates something important: some mental processes cannot be switched off. You cannot choose not to read a word you are looking at, so the test measures how well you suppress an automatic response.
Try to look at the word without reading it. Softening your focus, or looking slightly past the text, weakens the automatic reading response and lets the colour register first. It feels strange and it genuinely works.
Say the colour out loud, or subvocalise it, before tapping. Committing to an answer verbally helps override the word your brain has already read, which is the whole difficulty of the test.
Do not speed up when you get a run right. Confidence is when the word slips through, and most mistakes come immediately after a fast correct streak.
Expect it to be harder than it looks. The interference is real and measurable, and even people who know exactly how the effect works still slow down on mismatched words.
The colour of the ink the word is printed in, not the colour the word names.
Because reading is automatic. Your brain processes the word's meaning before you can stop it, and suppressing that takes effort.
Yes. The Stroop effect has been studied since 1935 and is a standard measure of attention and cognitive control.
Somewhat, with practice, though the interference never disappears entirely.
No sign-up, no email, no account. Open the page and Color Word Test is ready to play straight away, on a phone or a desktop.