Dr Julie Smith, a clinical psychologist, has shared a quick and easy test which shows how fast your brain works. Some people will find it easy, while others will struggle due to a common effect
A psychologist has unveiled a swift and straightforward test which is supposed to show the speed of your brain.
Dr Julie Smith, a clinical psychologist and published author, has joined scores of experts jumping onto social media platforms to share their experienced advice, knowledge, and insights to vast audiences.
Her consistent and engaging content has bagged her a whopping fanbase of more than 4.8 million TikTok followers.
One of her viral video, with views hitting a staggering 6.9 million, involves a deceptively simple challenge aimed at gauging how quickly your brain can process information. In the footage, Dr Smith addressed her audience directly and asked: “Quick psychology test – how fast is your brain? Try this. Name the colour of each font.”
As she speaks, words begin to appear around her. Each word denotes a colour, cleverly written in a matching coloured font. For example, ‘blue’ is penned in blue text; ‘green’ is written in green text; and ‘yellow’ is written in a yellow font.
Then Dr Smith raised the stakes. She asked: “Too easy? Try this.” At this point, more colour words appeared on the screen only this time, their colours didn’t match – the word ‘orange’ was displayed written in blue ink; the word ‘purple’ was written in red ink; the word ‘red’ was displayed in a green font; the list goes on.
This second round pushes people to read and say the colour of the text itself as opposed to just reading the word itself – quite the brain teaser. So when the word ‘orange’ appeared, written up in a blue font, the challenge is to say the word “blue” instead or reading the word “orange”.
Some people struggle with this task and need to “pause” to really think about it. This reaction is known as the Stroop effect.
What is the Stroop Effect?
Dr Smith explained: “If that was much harder and you needed to pause, then you just experienced the Stroop effect. One explanation for this is that your brain can read a word faster than it can label a colour.”
This insight is echoed by Simply Psychology on its website: “In psychology, the Stroop effect is the delay in reaction time between automatic and controlled processing of information, in which the names of words interfere with the ability to name the colour of ink used to print the words.”
It adds: “The Stroop effect is a psychological phenomenon demonstrating interference in reaction time of a task.”
When Dr Smith shared this on TikTok, users were quick to share their experiences. One person said: “I didn’t have to pause it!” While another person commented: “Ooohh my brain is fast I’m surprised.”
Another user joked about their mix-up: “The text says red, the colour is green. I said yellow”, and another found an advantage: “Finally. A task where dyslexia is useful!”
Dr Smith is the author of the Sunday Times million copy bestseller, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which offers her professional yet accessible guidance along with robust strategies to withstand life’s hurdles.
The book features “short, bite-sized entries” covering an array of crucial subjects such as tackling anxiety, handling criticism, discovering motivation, and a whole lot more.
