What is the Stroop effect? In psychology, the Stroop effect indicates the interference observed between a main task and an interfering cognitive process.
For example, the interference is what happens when you have to name a color (main task) used for write a word, and when the word itself is the name of another color; this interference is caused by a mental process of automatic reading.
This interference is manifested by a longer reaction time when asked for name the color in which is written a word while the color which it indicates is different (for example, the green word written in red) compared with a situation where the word and the color correspond (the yellow word written in yellow).
The reading (which consists above all in word recognition) would be made in the occipito-parietal area of the brain, whereas naming the color calls on the frontal lobe.
The name of this effect comes from the name of the one who discovered it, the psychologist John Ridley Stroop.