John Stroop
Paying attention to how we process information
Intro
John Stroop was an experimental psychologist, best known for developing the Stroop test. In this task, participants are given a list of words, printed in different colors. They are asked to read the color of each word, as opposed to the word itself, and the delay this generally causes is known as the Stroop effect. Stroop’s work opened the door to decades of research into how our brains switch between automatic and deliberate information processing. Stroop was a respected lecturer at David Lipscomb College, where he spent most of his career teaching and researching. Despite his legacy in the field of psychology, Stroop’s primary focus throughout his life was his devout Christian faith. He preached in churches across Tennessee and further afield, and published several books based on his biblical teachings. The Stroop test grew increasingly popular in the 1970s and 1980s, and is still used today in both research and clinical information-processing settings.
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
