THE THINKING BEHIND THE GAME
A word gets
in the way.
The Stroop effect is that small moment of hesitation when what you read and what you see disagree.
What is the Stroop effect?
For a practiced reader, recognizing a word can feel almost automatic. Naming the ink color takes a different response. When the word BLUE appears in red ink, the word and the color compete, and naming the color often becomes slower or less accurate.
This conflict is known as the Stroop effect. It is named after psychologist J. Ridley Stroop, whose 1935 work described interference between reading and naming colors.
Try the color–word challenge
In Oryova’s Stroop game, choose the ink color using four buttons or the number keys. You can play a 30-second round, a 60-second round, or an untimed set of 20 practice answers.
Play the Stroop testWhat does color conflict cost mean?
Our game compares your median correct response time on conflicting words with your median correct response time on matching words. A positive difference means conflicting words took longer in that round. We show this comparison only after at least two correct responses of each kind.
A single browser round is a small, noisy sample. Key familiarity, color vision, device response, and distractions can all influence it. It is not a clinical Stroop assessment.
A game, not a diagnosis
There is no universal good score for this implementation. Use your results to explore the task and compare your own sessions, rather than to draw conclusions about intelligence or health.