The Stroop Effect

The Stroop effect is a psychological occurrence first described by John Ridley Stroop in the 1935. The Stroop effect had been fascinating psychologists because it appears to tap into essential operations of cognition, thereby offering clues to fundamental cognitive processes. There were two great experiments made , Stroop first compared reading a list of words printed in black with reading the same list of words printed in incongruent colors. Stroop found that there was little difference in reading time for the two lists. Stroop then compared the naming of colors for a list of solid color squares with the naming of colors for a list of words printed in incongruent colors. Its 74% longer to name color ink of incongruent words. The results of this two studies is that people are used to read word rather than identify colors.

The Stroop Effect test consists : 1. A person is handed a list of words matching the colors the words are describing . 2. You are asked to name the color of the ink used on each word . 3. They are timed for this first test 4. The colors of the words change place , they didn’t match anymore 5. You are asked to name the color on the word 6. You get timed for the second test

Stroop found out that practice made the time in which the task was being done decrease. That naming colors result much slower than reading them. 

You stumble because the brain is trying to pay attention to more than one thing . The brain tries to read and visualize what color or word it is so its confusing . That’s why the second test , were the words didn’t match was harder .

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-stroop-effect.htm

The myth of multitasking

1.Why is multitasking considered by many psychologists to be a myth?

Multitasking is considered to be a myth because in reality we cant do two things at the same time . The only thing we can do is to change of task so fast that we think that we are multitasking . One example is texting while speaking , you are going to text or talk in stead because you are gooing to think in one better.

2.To what does the term "response selection bottleneck" refer?

Marois found evidence of a “response selection bottleneck” that occurs when the brain is forced to respond to several stimuli at once. As a result, task-switching leads to time lost as the brain determines which task to perform.

3.David Meyer has found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline . Why is this important? 

This is important to know because stress hormones and adrenaline can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory

4.Explain what Russel Podrack found regarding multitasking.

His research demonstrates that people use different areas of the brain for learning and storing new information when they are distracted. Brain scans of people who are distracted or multitasking show activity in the striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning new skills . Brain scans of people who are not distracted show activity in the hippocampus, a region involved in storing and recalling information. 

5. What does  the author conclude could happen to our culture as a result of increased multitasking?

With crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks . Their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.

Observations of the Bambuti Pygmies

The Pygmies are the nomadic hunting and gathering inhabitants of the Ituri Forest in Africa. The Bambuti are the most famous of the Pygmies and also the shortest with an average height of 4 feet 6 inches. The Bambuti hunt and gather food which they use for their own consume and for trading to their neighbors in exchange for goods and other material which are not available in the forests. The Bambuti show very little concern for afterlife and the dead are buried near the huts and the camp is abandoned.

Colin Turnbull was a Oxford-student Englishmen . Colin had an affair with the African Pygmies . He was a genius and a great anthropologist , but he was gay , he had found love with a poor African guy called Joe Towles . Colin described what happened in former Congo . When the Bambuti pygmy , went with him to the plains . Colin says “And then he saw the buffalo, still grazing lazily several miles away, far down below. He turned to me and said, 'What insects are those?' At first I hardly understood, then I realized that in the forest vision is so limited that there is no great need to make an automatic allowance for distance when judging size. Out here in the plains, Kenge was looking for the first time over apparently unending miles of unfamiliar grasslands, with not a tree worth the name to give him any basis for comparison... 
When I told Kenge that the insects were buffalo, he roared with laughter and told me not to tell such stupid lies.” This means that Kenge didn’t have experience of seeing distant objects and he saw them small at first . This observation Colin had is important for the study of perception because it lets you know that distant objects might get a different picture of what they really are .

Colin Turnbull

Collin Macmillan Turnbull was a British American anthropologist that came famous with the popular books the forest people and the mountain people. The forest book from the Mbuti Pygmy in Zane, and the mountain people of the IK people of Uganda. Turnball was born in London and studied in Westminster school and Magdalen College. He studied politics and psychology in Oxford. In 1951 after he had graduated from Banaras Hindu university he went to Congo with Newton Beal .He studied the Bambuti pygmy’s at first, but then he encountered a job. This job consisted on building a boat for a Hollywood film. After he constructed the boat, he traveled to Canada , to work in a gold mine and geologist . Became us citizen after he had been named curator of African Ethnology at the American museum of American History . Then moved to Virginia and worked at the Department of anthropology and Sociology . Other professional work was Corresponding Member of Royal Museum of Central Africa and fellowship in British Royal Anthropological institute. Between all these grandness in his career that was his sexuality , he had a partner called Joe Towles. They lived as an opened gay couple in New York , and then in Virginia till Joes death . He died of AIDS , after Joe’s death Turnball stayed totally in shock, till he died by his own Aids. 

http://www.colinturnbull.com/
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/turnbull_colin.html