In search of the Font Effect: the effect of conflict upon reading and naming typefaces serially
Abstract
Stroop (1935) demonstrated that conflicting words interfered with ink 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, Times, 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.”
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