Name the ink, not the word.
A free Stroop test you can take right now. Four practice trials, then 24 timed ones. It takes about two minutes and gives you your reaction times, your accuracy and your Stroop effect in milliseconds.
A colour word will appear. Tap the button for the colour it is printed in. Ignore what the word says.
RED
Here the answer is Blue. Go as fast as you can without guessing.
This task depends on telling red, blue, green and yellow apart. It is a demonstration of a well-known effect, not a medical or diagnostic test.
The Stroop effect is one kind of interference
This page is from the team behind Attention Age: Focus Test for iPhone and iPad. Its Interference task uses arrows where this one uses colour words, and it is one of three. According to its App Store listing you get:
- A five-minute test built from three timed tasks: Signal Watch, Interference and Tracking
- A 0 to 100 Attention Index with five category scores, each explained in plain language
- A validity check that flags sessions that probably do not reflect a real attempt
- A weekly re-test with the same tasks and scoring, where changes under 5 points are called "about the same"
- No account, and results that stay on your device
Results on this page do not transfer to the app, and the two are scored differently.
How to read your result
The effect is a difference, not a speed. It is your average time when the word fights the ink, minus your average time when they match. Only correct answers are counted. A fast person and a slow person can have the same effect.
A bigger number means the word got in the way more. Reading is so automatic that the word arrives before you have named the colour. The extra milliseconds are the cost of overriding it.
Accuracy matters as much as time. If you rushed and made several mistakes on the mismatched trials, your times will look better than they should. Aim for 90 percent or more before you compare runs.
Compare yourself with yourself. Use the same device and the same hand, at a similar time of day. A phone touchscreen and a keyboard give different times, and so does a second run, because you have practised.
One run is noisy. Twelve trials of each kind is a small sample. Take the result as a rough reading and run it two or three times before drawing any conclusion.
Questions
What is the Stroop test?
It is a task in which colour words are printed in coloured ink and you name the ink, not the word. When the two disagree, such as the word RED printed in blue, people respond more slowly and make more mistakes. J. Ridley Stroop published the best-known version in 1935.
What is the Stroop effect?
It is the extra time you need when the word and the ink colour disagree, compared with when they match. This page reports it in milliseconds: your average time on mismatched trials minus your average time on matching trials, counting correct answers only.
What is a good Stroop test score?
There is no single good score, and this page does not grade you against other people. Almost everyone is slower on mismatched trials. Your result depends on your device, whether you use a keyboard or a touchscreen, and how tired you are, so it is most useful for comparing your own runs under the same conditions.
Can a Stroop test diagnose ADHD or anything else?
No. Clinicians sometimes use Stroop-type tasks as one small part of a wider assessment, but a two-minute browser test cannot diagnose any condition. If you are worried about your attention, speak to a qualified health professional.
Is my result stored?
Your smallest effect so far is kept in this browser only, when the browser allows it. Nothing is sent to a server.
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