Visual Stroop Test

The Visual Stroop Test is designed to assess cognitive flexibility and attention span by examining a patient’s ability to separate word and color naming stimuli through the use of three separate subtests.

How do you use the Visual Stroop test?

The Visual Stroop test consists of 3 separate subtests, each subtest contains 100 items presented in 5 columns of 20 items. Patients have 45 seconds to complete each subtest, with a total score calculated from the sum of each of the subtests.

See Also: Cognitive Tests & Assessments

During the first subtest, the patient is asked to read aloud the color names such as red, green, or blue written in black ink. The reader’s time to complete the task and any errors are recorded.

For the second subtest, the patient is asked to repeat the test with a new list of words reading aloud color names such as red, green, or blue, but this time the named colors are written in a different color than the word (e.g., the word “blue” is written in red). Again, the time to complete the task and number of errors is recorded.

In the third subtest, the patient is asked to repeat the second subtest but should say the colors that the words are printed in (e.g., when red is printed in green, the patient should say green). Again, the time to complete the task and the number of errors is recorded.

The error rate and not the speed is the index of inhibitory cognitive control.

References & More

1. Orthopedic Physical Assessment by David J. Magee, 7th Edition.
2. Morgan AL, Brandt JF. An auditory Stroop effect for pitch, loudness and time. Brain Lang. 1989;36(4):592–603. Pubmed
3. Worden TA, Mendes M, Singh P, Vallis LA. Measuring the effects of a visual or auditory Stroop task on dual-task cost during obstacle crossing. Gait Posture. 2016;50:159–163. Pubmed
4. Scarpina F, Tagini S. The Stroop Color and Word Test. Front Psychol. 2017 Apr 12;8:557. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00557. PMID: 28446889; PMCID: PMC5388755. Pubmed