Abstract

Stroop (1935) demonstrated that conflicting words interfered with colour naming while conflicting colours did not interfere with word reading. In our study — a collaboration between a typographer and a psychologist — we re-created Stroop’s study by replacing colour names with typeface names, ink colours with typefaces, and control colour squares with a pseudoword. Relatively expert participants who could recognize the five typefaces (Helvetica, Courier, Papyrus, Garamond and Ondine) were asked to read and name the typefaces from a 10 × 10 matrix, modeled after Stroop’s original materials, with and without conflict. (Typographer:) “Despite the specialized skill for typeface recognition in our participants” we replicated Stroop’s finding of asymmetrical interference, (Psychologist:) “confirming the dominance of reading.”