What's this about color?

Chances are you've probably seen this test before and you probably find it mildly irritating (I did at least). I'm learning about this in my psychology class and I find it interesting now that I've learned the "why" behind it.

Here are the directions:

Time yourself on each of the following tasks: (1) Name the colors in each box in column (a). (2) Name the ink colors used to print the words in columns (b), (c), and (d), timing each column separately.

How did you do? It took Bennett 5 seconds to name column a, 5 seconds to name column b, 9 seconds to name column c and 7 seconds to name column d.

Why did column c take so much longer? It's because you cannot not read the words. It's almost impossible.

Here's what my book says: "Apparently, the preattentive processes involved in reading are so automatic that we cannot consciously stop them from occurring when we are looking at a word. We find it impossible not to read a color name that we are looking at, and that interferes with our ability to think of and say quickly the ink color name when the two are different."

Children who can't read pass this test more quickly then reading adults. Your reading ability gets in your way because now that you've been reading so long it interfers with other processes (like taking this quiz).

In case you wanted to know, it's called the The Stroop interference effect.

To prove this look at any word any where and try to not read it. You can't do it (unless you're blind or have your glasses off.)