PSYC 2021 Winter 2017

Course Instructor: Dr. J. Anderson

Analyzing the Correlation of The Stroop Task and Stress in a Sample of

Students Using an Online Test and Heart Rate: Accurate or Inaccurate?
Jasmin Patel- 212750261
York
University
Department of
Psychology

The purpose of the study was to examine and test the hypothesis that stress causes the
heart rate to increase; the increase in heart rate effects the student’s Stroop task
negatively. Students in a statistics class were to conduct a brief online experiment
(Stroop Task) as well as a short questionnaire (heart rate reading (BPM) and results of
the Stroop Task), to acquire a data set of a sample. Participants performing the
experiment, showed rather a rather reverse response; students were observed to do better
on the Stroop Task as the stress and heart increases, as the response time of the
participant decreases. The study helps us further analyze the data and shows an inverse
relationship between the Stroop Task and Stress. Further on, we discuss the implications
of these results which helps us make presumptions of how the experiment could affect a
larger sample or even a population.
Keywords: Stroop Effect; Heart Rate; Stress
perform in this kind of situation generates both
Introduction cardiovascular reactivity and negative affect
The Stroop Task is used by many researchers to (Anderson, N, Lau, M, Segal, Z, Bishop, S, 2007).
measure the ability to selectively observe the color of Stroop investigated the difference in time for reading
a word while filtering out its meaning. The task uses the words printed in colors and the same words
color naming (control process) and reading printed in black is the measure of the interference of
(automatic process). This strong interference of word colour stimuli upon reading words (Stroop, 1935).
reading consequently followed by color naming is Stroop conducted the experiment in two ways, first,
called the Stroop Effect (Stroop, 1935). The Stroop the participants were asked to read the colored words
Task has been used broadly as a laboratory stress to record the time difference from when participants
variable in cardiovascular reactivity research read the name of the colors in black font. In the
(Boutcher, Y, Boutcher, S, 2006). Cardiovascular second condition, participants are to practice naming
hyper-reactivity caused due to mental challenges is colors for eight days (200 words per day) (Stroop,
thought to contribute to the development of many 1935). Stroop’s findings tell us that practice was
cardiovascular diseases (Boutcher, Y, Boutcher, S, either to increase or decrease the variability of the
2006). A person undergoing a stressful situation, has group depending on the nature of the material used,
shown to negatively affect cognition performance, also, some indications were found that the sex
causing them to perform negatively on the Stroop difference in naming colors is due to the difference in
Test. training of the two sexes (Stroop,1935). Researchers
Many researchers have been working on have also come up with conclusions that hint that the
evaluating the effects of Stroop correlating with other participants tend to take longer to name the color of
variables such as stress, for over 60 years now. In the ink that color words are written in, when ink color
1935, J. Stroop was very curious to study the and color words doesn’t match (Boutcher, Y,
interference in serial verbal reactions (Stroop, 1935). Boutcher, S, 2006).
Stroop’s interest in interference began after reading a It is undetermined if an increase in stress
paper on interference by psychologists, Bowditch and correlates with results of the Stroop Task. Therefore,
Warren, J, in 1890 (Stroop, 1935). Stroop is the purpose of this experiment is to compare results
performed at a pace that makes perfect performance of a sample from a population to study whether the
difficult whilst under the scrutiny of an experimenter effect of an increased heart rate due to stress, causes,
(Boutcher, Y, Boutcher, S, 2006). The pressure to the sample of students to perform worse.

Methods
Participants
Participants were 87 healthy males and females,
students in an Introduction to Statistics at York
University. All the students were given instructions
on how to conduct the experiment in class as well as
on the class website.
Measurements
Heart Rate (BPM)
Students were instructed to have the student sitting
next to them, to measure each other’s heart rate; by
locating the pulse on the wrist or carotid. The heart
rate was recorded for 30 seconds and then multiplied
by 2 to calculate the heart rate in beats per minute.
Stroop Effect
Students were instructed to access the Stroop Task
through an online resource
(http://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-
library/stroop.html). The task is less than minutes to
do. The participants were to press keyboard keys
associated with color, unlike, the original experiment
where they were required to name the color. There
are 40 trials in the experiment. The Stroop effect is
calculated by as the average response time in
incompatible trials minus compatible trials. Students
were required to copy and paste the response times to
a local file. As well as clicking the “Show Data”
button on the screen and record individual data from
Results
Descriptive Statistics
The sample size is n = 86; 22 male, 64 female;
80 right-handed, 6 left-handed. The average heart rate
is 79.94 BPM, the mode is 70 BPM, the median is 76
BPM, and the standard deviation for heart rate is
22.66 BPM. The average congruent response time is
796.63 ms, the mode is 732 ms, the median is 781.5
ms, and the standard deviation is 243.84 ms. The
average incongruent response time is 900.73 ms, the
mose is 1120 ms, the median is 907.5 ms, and the
standard deviation is 249.37 ms. The average
response time in total is 848.68 ms, the mode is 732
ms, the median is 849.5 ms, and the standard
deviation is 251.37 ms. The average Stroop Effect is
117.18 ms, the mode is -33, the median is 102 ms,
and the standard deviation is 130.18 ms.
Inferential Statistics
Heart-Rate predicting Stroop-Effect:
700
What was your Stroop- Effect Response Time
600
500
400
300
(ms)?

the Stroop Task.

Questionnaire 200
Students were then taken to an online in-class
questionnaire 100
(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe12W
Qj1oTN60Q1_uDnMxQRLsN3qM29W9vMqMd7ab 0
b1bZmtVA/closedform) where they recorded their 0 100 200 300
-100
handedness, gender, heart rate (BPM), congruent
Heart Rate (BPM)
response time (ms), incongruent response time (ms),
-200
and the Stroop Effect response time (ms). y = -0.465x + 154.33
Procedure R² = 0.0067
Students were asked to relax, then take record Figure 1: Data correlating heart rate with the Stroop
their individual heart rates. They were then to access Effect.
the online resource in which they could perform the
Stroop Task. Subsequently, participants were to go Table 1: Pearson Correlation between the heart rate
and fill out the in-class questionnaire. and the Stroop Effect.
Statistical Analysis
The professor was to distribute the data set to the
class students (participants will also be analyzing the
data set in this particular study), to perform statistical
analysis. A statistic analyzing software was used to
analyze the data set, Microsoft Excel and JASP.
Microsoft word was used for descriptive statistics,
some of inferential statistics, and exploratory
analyses. JASP was used to make many inferential
statistics, such as t-test, and exploratory analyses.
.
 Exploratory Analyses
Individual Response versus Class: Gender Effects :
. Female :
700

600

What is your Stroop Effect Response Time (ms) ?

500

400

300

200

100

0
0 50 100 150 200 250
-100
Heart Rate (BPM)

-200
y = 0.0985x + 106.26
Figure 2: Individual response time vs the class
R² = 0.0003
response time
Figure 3: Data correlating heart rate with the Stroop
Effect in Female.
Table 2: One Sample T-Test to compare individual
response time with the class response time.
Table 3: Pearson Correlation between the heart rate
One Sample T-Test
and the Stroop Effect in Female.
VS-
t df p
MPR*
Response_Time 0.793 39 0.432 1.000

Note. Student's t-test.

* Vovk-Sellke Maximum p -Ratio: Based on the p -
value, the maximum possible odds in favor of H₁
over H₀ equals 1/(-e p log( p )) for p ≤ .37 (Sellke,
Bayarri, & Berger, 2001).
Note. For all tests, the alternative hypothesis
specifies that the population mean is different from
844.68.
Male:
500
What was your Stroop-Effect response
400
300
time(ms)?
200
100
0 with the hypotheses but at a very minimal value,
0 50
Heart Rate (BPM)
-100
y = -3.2855x + 362.65
Figure 4: Data correlating heart rate with the Stroop
Effect in Male.
Table 4: Pearson Correlation between the heart rate
and the Stroop Effect in Male.
Discussion
The study has helped us investigate whether the
performance on the Stroop effect correlated with
stress. The traditional way of performing the Stroop
task is in a laboratory setting, where participants are
to read the word out loud. In this following
experiment, participants were to do this in a
comfortable setting, plus record individual data; due
to which there were errors in data set such as invalid
data entry, outlier etc. Participants were to take each
other’s heart rate which could have had errors as well
because no proper equipment was used to perform
this experiment.
In this experiment, the hypotheses stated that an
increase in stress level will correlate negatively with
the Stroop Task causing the students to perform
worse. In the descriptive statistics, the data set has
been explained very accurately. In the inferential
statistics, the graph shows the relationship between
the Stroop Task and Stress. It is a positive
correlation, which means that as the stress level
increases the performance on the Stroop Task
improves. In the exploratory analyses, the first
observation that was made was that there was more
than one variable that was affecting the Stroop Effect
response time. The graph (Figure 2) of an
individual’s data and the class’s data is being
compared; the individual’s response time is slower
than the class’s response time. Another observation
that was made was the difference in correlation in
different gender. In Figure 3, the correlation agrees
100 150 since the Pearson coefficient is 0.0018. While on the
other hand, the male participants’ data inversely
correlates and a high value as in Figure 4 the Pearson
R² = 0.2082 coefficient is -0.456.
The results of the experiment are not the best
possible results we could’ve recorded the data in a
better way, as there was a lot of raw data that had to
get discarded due to its inaccuracy.
Conclusion
After performing a brief experiment and analyzing
the sample data has given evidence to approve the
alternative hypotheses and reject the null hypotheses.
An increase in heart-rate due to stress showed an
improved performance on the Stroop Task by the
participants.
References
Anderson, N. D., Lau, M. A., Segal, Z. V., &
Bishop, S. R. (2007). Mindfulness-based stress
reduction and attentional control. Clinical Psychology
& Psychotherapy, 14(6), 449-463.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cpp.544
Boutcher, Y. N., & Boutcher, S. H. (2006).
Cardiovascular response to stroop: Effect of verbal
response and task difficulty. Biological
Psychology, 73(3), 235-241.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.04.00
5
Stroop, J. R. (1992). Studies of interference in
serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 121(1), 15-23.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.121.1.15