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- Title
DEVELOPMENT OF STROOP EFFECT IN BILINGUALS.
- Authors
Chengappa, Shyamala; Mohan P., Manju
- Abstract
The Stroop Effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. Females and children are reported to be quicker at reacting to the stroop tests. As age increases the reaction time taken to complete the test also increases. The Stroop Effect is now a mainstay of research on age-related differences in selective attention, automaticity, inhibitory processes and executive control. Stroop tests may be developed as a part of the assessment tool in cases of mild cognitive impairment seen in geriatric population. However, studies relating to the influences of Stroop Effect interferences are lacking in the Indian literature. The present study is aimed to see the development of Stroop Effect interference in a small group of Malayalam - English bilingual population, and to see whether gender difference exists in Stroop Effect tasks. 16 subjects (8 males and 8 females) in different age groups were taken. Age groups considered were divided into young adults (20 - 40 years), middle aged adults (40 - 60 years) and elderly, above 60 years. The subjects were shown incongruent stroop test mini cards (in which the color terms are written using different ink colors) and were asked to say the colors of the ink, correctly with which the items were written on the cards and the reaction time (RT) taken by each of the subject was measured using a stop watch. The extensive literature on Stroop Effect has many inconsistencies, were some studies mention that the Stroop Effect does not depend on age while some studies show the influence of aging in Stroop color tasks. Differences in literature are also found with respect to effects of gender. In the present study, Univariate analysis of variance and t tests were carried out for data analysis. Results indicated that the reaction time (RT) taken to name the incongruent colors showed a significant increase with the increase in age. The increasing trend with respect to time taken and age was apparent and the time taken by males in the entire study showed higher mean RT compared to females. As for the gender differences within age groups, significant differences were seen between males and females till the age of 60 years in naming the incongruent colors. But it was seen that after the age of 60 years there was no significant difference in the reaction time taken between males and females. The increasing RT seen in the study with respect to increasing age can be accounted for by the general slowing effects seen in the ageing population. This increase in time taken to process the incongruent color terms due to Stroop Effect, as reported in the literature, is supported by the present study. Another finding of the study was the gender difference seen within different age groups, were females were found to outperform males before attaining the age of 60 years. The improved color recognition skills in specific, along with the advanced language flexibility in females can account for this finding. This is in agreement with the studies in literature that supports female advantage in language processing, although the reasons are still debated. The absence of gender effects after 60 years of age may probably be because the female advantage is nullified with advancing age due to general cognitive decline.
- Subjects
INTERFERENCE (Linguistics); REACTION time; BILINGUALISM; AGE factors in language acquisition; INDIC literature
- Publication
Language in India, 2009, Vol 9, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
1930-2940
- Publication type
Article