Experiment on Emotional Stroop Effect: Analytical Essay

Abstract

In a class experiment a mindfulness exercise was used to investigate the effects it would have on attention. Before the mindfulness exercise was carried out an emotional stroop test was taken by all participants and again after the mindfulness test to investigate the effects. Participants were given a mindfulness test or a relaxation test to also investigate if either exercise will make a difference. The results obtained from the experiment indicated that the mindfulness test did have an effect on the stroop test and significantly reduced the emotional stroop effect, which was not the case for the relaxation exercise. The means of both the mindfulness and relaxation exercise showed a reduction in the emotional stroop test effect however the reduction was enduring for the participants who completed the mindfulness exercise. This shows that the hypothesis was not supported.

Introduction

Mindfulness is a state which enables one’s ability to be aware of present moments, without judgement. Past researchers have claimed that mindfulness can promote positive change and in wellbeing and cognition. Mindfulness meditation improves cognition by increasing the ability to control attention and ignore task-irrelevant/distracting information and has gained popularity in many fields of life such as in schools, the military, and mental health services. As a result, there has been a huge increase in research that seeks to critically evaluate why mindfulness is associated with these benefits. There are two hypotheses that were tested in this experiment 1. The mindfulness exercise will significantly reduce the Emotional Stroop effect and 2. the relaxation exercise will not significantly reduce the Emotional Stroop effect. The aim of this study was a replication of evaluating whether a brief mindfulness exercise is sufficient to reduce the Emotional Stroop effect. In 2016 Waiter and Dubois conducted a study on The effects of a brief mindfulness exercise on executive attention and recognition memory. The participants involved were either assigned to a brief mindfulness condition, an attention exercise control condition, or an arithmetic exercise control condition (Waiter and Dubois, 2016). An emotional Stroop task and recognition test which was a surprise were used to measure attention and recognition memory. Their results showed that a brief mindfulness exercise can increase levels of state mindfulness compared to the arithmetic exercise but not to an attention exercise.

Method

Study 1

Design

The independent variable for the experiment was the time it took before and after the Stroop test and the dependent variable was the difference in response times to negative and neural words which was done separately for mindfulness and relaxation. The experimental design was a two repeated measures design (within participants design) because both mindfulness and relaxation were separately investigated.

Participants

A total of number 120 students. 60 students (15 male, 45 female) participated in the mindfulness exercise and the other 60 students (7 male, 53 female) participated in the relaxation exercise. The participants were a sample of volunteers from Goldsmith’s university campus. The participants were asked by their lab teachers to complete an experiment during their lab class and was described as being about attention . The participants were unaware of the experimental hypothesis.

Materials/stimuli

The materials used for the experiment was a windows computer, an emotional Stroop task programmed in E-Prime 2.0, a mindfulness exercise which was taken from a mindfulness based stress reduction 8-weel training course and consisted of breathing exercise and a 10-minute relaxation exercise which was taken from YouTube.

Procedure

The experiment was run on a windows computer in a lab class. Participants were instructed to sit at an arm’s length distance of the computer to ensure that they can easily reach the keyboard to select either v, b, n and m with one hand. The participants were then presented with a Stroop task which is a well-known measure for attention. They were then presented with coloured words on their screens which were displayed in different inks. The participants were then expected to produce the word, regardless of the colour it is presented in e.g., blue with the correct answer being ‘blue’ or name the colour, inhibiting, the comprehension of the word (e.g. blue with the correct answer being ‘red). This was completed by the participants before and after the mindfulness exercise. The practice blocks consisted of 8 trails and the main blocks consisted of 25 negative trails and 25 neural trials which were counterbalanced.

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Results

The emotional Stroop test tries to investigate how negative and neural words have different response times and how they associate with each other. The larger the number shows a larger Stroop effect (i.e., negative words are processed on a more slower scale than neural words. The outcome of the stroop task indicated that there were no significant differences in the reduction of the stroop task on both the mindfulness and relaxation exercise and did not support the experimental hypothesis.

Study 2

Design

The independent variable for the experiment was the time it took before and after the Stroop test and the dependent variable was the difference in response times to negative and neural words which was done separately for mindfulness and relaxation. The experimental design was a two repeated measures design (within participants design) because both mindfulness and relaxation were separately investigated.

Participants

A total of number 120 students. 60 students (15 male, 45 female) participated in the mindfulness exercise and the other 60 students (7 male, 53 female) participated in the relaxation exercise. The participants were a sample of volunteers from Goldsmith’s university campus. The participants were asked by their lab teachers to complete an experiment during their lab class and was described as being about attention . The participants were unaware of the experimental hypothesis.

Procedure

The experiment was run on a windows computer in a lab class. Participants were instructed to sit at an arm’s length distance of the computer to ensure that they can easily reach the keyboard to select either v, b, n and m with one hand. The participants are then presented with a Stroop task which is a well-known measure for attention. They were then presented with coloured words on their screens which were displayed in different inks. The participants were then expected to produce the word, regardless of the colour it was presented in e.g., blue with the correct answer being ‘blue’ or name the colour, inhibiting, the comprehension of the word (e.g. blue with the correct answer being ‘red). This was done before and after the relaxation exercise. The practice blocks consisted of 8 trails and the main blocks consisted of 25 negative trails and 25 neural trials which were counterbalanced.

Stimuli/materials

The materials used for the experiment was a windows computer, an emotional Stroop task programmed in E-Prime 2.0, a mindfulness exercise which was taken from a mindfulness based stress reduction 8-weel training course and consisted of breathing exercise and a 10-minute relaxation exercise which was taken from YouTube.

Results

The emotional Stroop test tries to investigate how negative and neural words have different response times and how they associate with each other. The larger the number shows a larger Stroop effect (i.e., negative words are processed on a more slower scale than neural words. The outcome of the stroop task indicated that there were no significant differences in the reduction of the Stroop task on both the mindfulness and relaxation exercise and did not support the experimental hypothesis.

Discussion

Mindfulness exercises are used to examine the correlation between mindfulness and attention. We examined how a Stroop task would affect the measures of how mindful a person can be. We first predicted that the mindfulness exercise would have a significant effect on a person. The limitations of the emotional Stroop test can be disrupted due to whether the participant is in a good mood or a bad mood or their individual experiences. Re-testing over a longer period of time would give better results.