Question

How do the Stroop results challenge the assumptions of behaviorism and support the assumptions of cognitive psychology?

Answer 1

Behaviorism theory was first explained by John B Watson in 1913, according to his theory the behaviors are the result of experience, as the behaviorist believe that human is born as a blank slate (tabula rasa), and the behavior can be developed by positive or negative reinforcement. The child learns by observing his surroundings. One of the best examples is an experiment by Watson, known as Little Albert Experiment.

The cognitive process focuses on the mental ability of humans that influences one's behavior. As per this theory, the information is gathered by the brain through attention, perception, short-term memory; it systematically processes this information and helps in the process of performing. It does not agree with the behaviorism theory that human personality is developed fully due to observation and the environment. As per the cognitive theory, people are bombarded by the information it is the brain that detects the stimuli from the environment and develops the sensation and perception, the brain discards the unuseful information. Its(brain) working resembles the working of the computer.

The Stroop effect was developed by John Ridley Stroop and published in 1935, it says in cognitive processing the two theories work together 1.speed of processing theory and 2.Selective Attention Theory: for example the words like red, pink, green, written in black, blue and indigo colors, and a group is said to read the color with which the word is written instead of reading the word, they would find it difficult due to semantic effect.

Semantic effect says that the words are recognized faster and accurately because the information is specified for example if red is written with red color or blue is written with blue color both stimuli (color and meaning) are congruent or compatible, thus it takes shorter processing time and one can give correct answer rapidly.

If there is a conflict between word color and word meaning or they are incongruent and incompatible, the processing time would be longer as our brain would concentrate more on the meaning of words rather than the colors they are written with, because reading is automatic and due to selective attention one focuses on the relevant target that has developed due to continuous reading.

The behaviorism theory says the behavior is developed by our observation and environment, while cognitive theory says that the brain acts like a computer and collect the input(information), process it and select the useful information, and discard remaining information in the recycle bin, and the behavior is the output of the information. The Stroop theory says that human brain process and selects the more congruent information, and process it faster because our brain is trained to select the information, and this is developed by doing the work repeatedly that is developing the behavior of reading, and learning through the environment.

Thus Stroop theory says it is not only the behavior that helps in learning. It is the cognitive ability to process the information that is developed by observation and repeating.