Skip to Main Content| Colorblind Mode:OnOff

Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Thinking

Animations

Stroop Effect

Make the argument that many steps are required for even our simplest mental activities. This is true for perception, for memory, and certainly for thinking. In addition, many of the steps involved in these mental activities are redundant, and with practice they become automatic. This has an enormous benefit: it allows you to devote your attention, instead, to other aspects of the task, aspects that are not so well practiced.

The fact that much of our mental activity has an "automatic" quality is beneficial in that we can take many mental steps — often complex mental steps — while paying attention to something else. This allows us to put our attention where it's really needed — on the especially complicated, or entirely novel, aspects of a task — rather than concentrating (quite unnecessarily) on things we've done a thousand times before.

However, this benefit does have a price attached to it: Because we are not attending to automatic activities, we have less ability to control automatic activities. Therefore, it is difficult to "adjust" these automatic activities when they're not quite appropriate for the occasion. Worse, it is difficult to inhibit these activities, if we decide that, just this once, we want to avoid our well-practiced routines.

Psychologists have found (or invented) many ways to demonstrate this apparent loss-of-control, associated with automatic mental processes. The classic demonstration is the Stroop effect, first described by J. Ridley Stroop in 1935.

This experiment demonstrates the standard Stroop effect. Each screen will show a series of letters, printed in a particular color. The moment the letters appear, say out loud what color they are printed in. To start the experiment, click on the "view animation" button above and follow the onscreen directions.

Conclusion

In these (and many other) settings, it is easy to demonstrate the automatic quality of our perceptions, responses, and thoughts. Chapter 8 considers still other examples — the sort of "automatic approach" to a problem that is usually referred to as a problem-solving set. In those cases, too, we rely, without thinking about it, on well-practiced routines, and, as a result, may fail to solve a problem if the routines are, for that problem, inappropriate.

It is important, though, to have a balanced view of these various automatic habits. There is no question that this automaticity is sometimes an impediment — hurting problem-solving, or causing responses that are plainly at odds with our intentions.

At the same time, though, these automatic habits also help us. As we said at the start, relying on automatic routines frees up attention for other purposes, including other aspects of the task we're working on. As a result, there is no question that we would be worse off without the use of routine, and so the problems with routine may be a small price to pay for the benefits.

Print This Page
Bookmark and Share

The Norton Gradebook

Instructors and students now have an easy way to track online quiz scores with the Norton Gradebook.

Go to the Norton Gradebook

Norton Ebooks

The ebook version Psychology, 8e offers the full content of the print version at half the price.

Norton Ebooks