Here is an interesting one. Have you ever heard that conservatives are people comfortable with habit and  routine, as opposed to those creative liberals who thrive on innovation and change? That's something college typically teaches when they explain to students the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Well, it turns out, a couple of psychologists have developed a test that demonstrates the ability to make quick decisions under varying conditions. More than that, it uses a two tier question system, by which the tester is able to determine how well the taker is able to respond to questions deliberately designed to challenge his or her level of comfort with the way things are usually seen.

That's my best shot at explaining it. It is called the Stroop Test. It is all right to take a few practice runs until you get the hang of what is being asked of you. It is based on reaction time, which is something you cannot really fake. I won't tell you how liberals and conservatives compared. I think you have already guessed.

http://www.onlinestrooptest.com/stroop_effect_test.php

http://cognitivefun.net/test/2

I don't get the scoring

                  Correct              Seconds
Congruent      5                      20

Incongruent   14                     16

Quote from: red_dirt on July 04, 2015, 06:35:01 PM
Here is an interesting one. Have you ever heard that conservatives are people comfortable with habit and  routine, as opposed to those creative liberals who thrive on innovation and change? That's something college typically teaches when they explain to students the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Well, it turns out, a couple of psychologists have developed a test that demonstrates the ability to make quick decisions under varying conditions. More than that, it uses a two tier question system, by which the tester is able to determine how well the taker is able to respond to questions deliberately designed to challenge his or her level of comfort with the way things are usually seen.

That's my best shot at explaining it. It is called the Stroop Test. It is all right to take a few practice runs until you get the hang of what is being asked of you. It is based on reaction time, which is something you cannot really fake. I won't tell you how liberals and conservatives compared. I think you have already guessed.

http://www.onlinestrooptest.com/stroop_effect_test.php

http://cognitivefun.net/test/2

You in deep do do if your color blind.   

I am still a little confused on that, too, mostly about the timing report. After you do it a few times, you start to relax and watch your mind at word.

The congruent trials are the ones in which the color and the word match. For example, the word yellow in the color yellow. The normal response is to answer the congruent trial quicker than the incongruent trial,  theoretically, because we are more comfortable seeing words with colors that match.  An example of an incongruent trial would be the word yellow in red letters.

With respect to the timing, if I am reading this right, your average response time on the incongruent trials was faster than response time on the congruent trials. I think what is being reported here is that you answered five out of five correct with an average time of 2.0 seconds reaction time per item. Your response on the incongruent trials, which we would expect to be slower in most people, was actually faster, if I am right, at an average of 1.6 seconds per trial.

This gives me something to look into to see just how they figure the response time. There is no way the time is a total. That would mean you took 4.0 seconds each on the five congruent trials. That's impossible.

What is interesting is the conclusion, that your score is an indication of how well your mind adapts to variant circumstances, or unusual conditions. It stands to reason that the usual condition would be the congruent, say the word red in a red color.  They have tricked the testers mind into revealing something about itself, without the tester knowing it, or being able to fake it. When this test hit the field, it received an unusually high response by psychologists. They loved it.

So, I would suggest you take it a few more times, until you get a consistent result, and I will look into this puzzling manner of reporting the times.  At first, this would indicate Dori has an unusually high ability to respond to challenges outside the comfort zone, which is exactly the opposite that teachers would expect, since she is a conservative.

The more we think about it, of course, watch the way liberals reason their arguments. They tend to get an idea and stubbornly cling to it. Conservatives, being more of the independent and professional types, are not permitted that luxury. We are accustomed to facing the challenges of reality as they come up. Stubbornness is not a valued trait.

Another thing this test can measure is endurance, the capacity to hang in there as the test proceeds. Conservative, achievers, workers, tend to hang in there. Leftists tend to give up earlier.  Interesting conclusions, still being worked on by doctors.

Mine was slightly weighted toward the congruent. My comfort zones were close, except once when I was tired, it weighted heavy on congruent. I was struggling to get the right answers on mismatched items.

Quote from: red_dirt on July 04, 2015, 08:06:51 PMThere is no way the time is a total. That would mean you took 4.0 seconds each on the five congruent trials. That's impossible.

I wonder if it depends on the kind of computer your on.  I'm using a laptop, and I'm not nearly as proficient using it, as I am on a PC with a mouse, not a mouse pad. 

No, that should not matter. The idea is not how fast or accurate you are, but to measure the difference in average response time between the two categories of trials.  There is some talk that this application came as a surprise to the test inventors. But the doctors were amazed at having a test that measured mental flexibility. When they compared conservatives and liberals, they were shocked at the unexpected differences.

I didn't get a score, but as far as I could tell, all one had to do was hit the first letter of the word that flashes on the screen?
Are libs really so stupid as to not catch on to this after the second word flashes up?

I hate giving out personal info, so I didn't create an account, and yes, an email is even too much personal info.

Quote from: Solar on July 05, 2015, 07:14:03 AM
I didn't get a score, but as far as I could tell, all one had to do was hit the first letter of the word that flashes on the screen?
Are libs really so stupid as to not catch on to this after the second word flashes up?
I hate giving out personal info, so I didn't create an account, and yes, an email is even too much personal info.

Same here. But the online test has a button to click to get your score. It is not an IQ test. Instead, it shows how locked into habit people's minds are. Not to post a bunch of links, but scientists were surprised to find so called "intellectually flexible" liberal are from from it. We could have told them that!