Naming the ink color of color words can be difficult.For example, if asked to name the colour of the word "blue" is difficult because the answer (red) conflicts with the word "blue." This interference is called "Stroop Interference" after the researcher who first discovered the phenomenon.

This case study is a classroom demonstration. Students in an introductory statistics class were each given three tasks. In the "words" task, students read the names of 60 color words written in black ink; in the "color" task, students named the colors of 60 rectangles; in the "interference" task, students named the ink color of 60 conflicting color words. The times to read the stimuli were recorded. There were 31 female and 16 male students.

Descriptions of Variables:

Descriptions of Variables: Variable Description Gender 1 for female, 2 for male Words Time in seconds to read 60 colour words Colours Time in seconds to name 60 colour rectangles Interfer Time in seconds to name colours of conflicting words gender words colours interfer gender words 1 14 colours 17 38 Interfere 14 17 21 15 49 58 17 13 18 17 35 40 1 16 13 20 17 38 39 16 12 18 14 33 28 15 17 18 20 32 29 19 17 24 20 45 33 14 16 17 19 52 28 2 17 22 32\f