Say The Colour Not The Word!

Previously visiting a lecture by Andy Sandoz at the liverpool design syposium 2009 he spoke very much about the brain and creativity which I find extremely fascinating. During the lecture he shown the above example which I had never seen before and I have found it fascinating ever since! I decided to research this and came across somebody else's blog with the same post.

"While you start identifying the colours, your brain also starts reading out the words, before you even realise it. Why is it so difficult? Because the right half of your brain is trying to say the colour, while the left side of your brain is trying to say the word," says one web site.

In fact this phenomenon is called The Stroop Effect. The famous "Stroop Effect" is named after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered this strange phenomenon in the 1930s. So, if you're like most people, your first inclination was to read the words, 'red, yellow, green...,' rather than the colours they're printed in, 'blue, green, red...' For instance, for the word BLUE, you should say "RED". But sometimes you end up reading the word, than identifying the colour.

writing taken from:http://precogssnickers.blogspot.com/2006/03/say-colour-not-word.html

The reason find this fascinating is because it is such a simple example. When looking at the chart I can feel that moment of hesitation and conflict. Finding myself trying to say the word an not the colour. Even though it is very simple you find yourself having to concentrate.