John Ridley Stroop

John Ridley Stroop ( born March 21, 1897 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, † September 1, 1973, buried in Nashville, Tennessee) was an American psychologist.

John Ridley Stroop is known today mainly for the Stroop effect named after him. With a sophisticated, relatively simple experimental arrangement, he succeeded impressively demonstrate interference effects in attention. Considerably less well known that Stroop strongly committed to the Church and religion saw his true vocation.

Life

Stroop was the second youngest of six children in rural Hall 's Hill (Rutherford County) was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1897. He grew up sheltered and forced to do hard physical labor on the family farm, since it was not high life expectancy was initially awarded. He attended the Kitrell County School and locked it as one of the best in his class. Stroop made ​​in 1919 graduated from David Lipscomb High School in 1921 and received a diploma from David Lipscomb Junior College.

On December 23, 1921, he married Zelma Dunn, with whom he had the next seven years, three children (all sons ). In order to earn his livelihood during this time and can build a house, he taught alongside his university education at David Lipscomb College continues, worked as a janitor and librarian and taught even at the high school.

His university education was at the George Peabody College Stroop in Nashville. In 1924 he was there a B.Sc. and 1925, M. A. awarded. In the 1920s, he held various teaching activities. Stroop's research took place under the supervision of Professor Joseph Peterson in Jesup Psychological Laboratory. He received his doctorate in 1933, the corresponding publication appeared two years later. Then he went back to David Lipscomb College and was there from 1948 to 1964 Chair of the Psychology Department. In 1967 he became Professor Emeritus, but taught until his death in 1973, even further than Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at David Lipscomb College. In addition to his influential article of 1935, he published only three other scientific articles in the field of experimental psychology.

A special meaning in his life had religion for Stroop. So he preached every Sunday and taught during his time at David Lipscomb College Bible classes. From his Bible teaching emerged seven books, the trilogy of God's plan and Me represents the main work dar. His books were henceforth used in many ways, such as in the Bible teaching of Christian schools and in the training of teachers.

The Stroop Effect

→ Main article Stroop Effect

In a series of experiments examined Stroop interference effects for verbal material under different conditions. The subjects had in these experiments, the task ( 1 ) black to read printed words, (2) to read colored printed words, (3) various colors that were presented in the form of squares or crosses to appoint, and (4 ) the color in which a so not matching color word is written to call thus ignoring the respective word content. The fourth condition is in this case the relevant. Due to the mismatch between the color word and its color due to be named in this condition, a response conflict between the actually not be observed word content and naming the color. This is known as the so-called Stroop (interference ) effect. The naming time of the color increases significantly and the error in naming piling up, that is, instead of the color is called the word read. In order to fulfill the cognitive task of naming is successful, the test subject (not consciously controlled ) process of reading under utilization of attentional resources must consciously suppress in processing the requested task to run automatically. This costs in naming the color of time.

This effect has since been replicated many times ( in more than 700 publications) and is to this day one of the most robust effects in cognitive psychology dar. Various modifications of this test method (eg with pictures, with tones ) are described.

Significance of his work

At the time of publication Stroop's article had hardly any influence on the science, presumably due to the fact that he appeared in the time of behaviorism. Stroop itself also investigated unable to continue in this area, although it was originally planned to continue the research on his dissertation. However, this was not realized after his doctor father Joseph Peterson died in 1935. Stroop itself increasingly dealt with religion and withdrew from experimental psychology.

Only in the 1960s, with the advent of information processing as the dominant perspective of cognitive psychology, the work of Stroop was rediscovered. Due to the simplicity of the test and the idea of automatic and different fast processes in information processing of the test was the subject of intense research and influenced the cognitive psychology sustainable. The Stroop test is now part of any basic book of psychology and students will learn in the study of psychology. In particular, in the clinical area (eg, neurology, psychiatry ), the test is often used to estimate the interference susceptibility of certain groups of people can.

John Ridley Stroop was aware of the impact of his tests in later years hardly aware it no longer interested him. So he wrote to the psychologist Arthur Jensen, after he sent him a Review article on the Stroop test, on a card, the following laconic -looking statement: " Glad to know others have found the test useful. J. R. Stroop ".

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