Eriksen and Eriksen (1974)

Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) introduced the "Stroop Effect," demonstrating how conflicting information can slow our responses. In their experiment, people were asked to identify the color of the ink in which words were printed. When the words spelled out color names that didn’t match the ink color (like the word "red" printed in blue), participants took longer to respond. This shows our brain's automatic process of reading words interferes with our ability to focus solely on color identification, illustrating how automatic and controlled processes compete during perception and decision-making.