The stroop color-word test: A review

Creative thinking skills are critical for learning and society's technical and cultural progress. As society becomes increasingly complex, there is a need to identify habits and practices that support creative thinking skills alongside wellbeing. Much research has suggested that mindfulness and its associated practices can support creativity. One such mindfulness practice is Yoga Nidra (a yogic practice closely aligned to meditation). The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between Yoga Nidra and creativity (via several indicators). We review of the literature on the effects of mindfulness practices and creativity, including Yoga Nidra. We then share an exploratory empirical study which utilized the Torrance non-verbal creativity test, the Mednick verbal creativity test, the WAM questionnaire (well-being, activity, mood), the "Word-color interference" method by G. Stroop, Raven's Progressive Matrices, and the Big 5 Five-Factor Personality Questionnaire. This study involved 22 people aged 27–53 from Almaty, Moscow, and Nur-Sultan. Creativity was measured via a pre-test; then the participants were introduced to a three-week Yoga Nidra practice program, followed by a post-test. The program was presented to participants for 60 min three times a week for three weeks, by a certified yoga expert. Participants were divided into two groups: online and offline practitioners. Both groups passed pre- and post- tests. Results demonstrated a positive impact of Yoga Nidra on the creativity of the participants following this three-week program. As education researchers, we consider this research within the context of an existing body of research and theory linking mindfulness/meditation practices to creativity, thinking and learning. Finally, we reflect on implications for further research, practice, and learning settings.

The objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a local wearable cooling solution in improving thermal comfort, emotional state, and cognitive performance. The study was conducted in an environmental room with air temperature of 31.5 ± 0.26 °C. Thirty participants performed six cognitive tasks while periodically assessing their thermal experience locally where the cooling (Embr wave) was applied and for the whole body, as well as emotional states. The same protocol was applied to another thirty participants as the control group without local cooling. We also measured mean skin temperature and local skin temperature beneath the cooling device during the whole session. The results showed a significant drop in thermal sensation right after the application of the local cooling. Based on the ASHRAE 7-point scale for the overall thermal sensation vote, the local sensation dropped from 0.8 to −0.4 and the whole-body thermal sensation from 1.34 to 0.87. Over the 60 min of local cooling application, the local thermal sensation dropped from 0.98 to 0.04 and the whole-body thermal sensation dropped from 1.37 to 1.12. Furthermore, the local cooling group showed a significant drop in negative emotions and an increase in positive emotions compared to the control group. For cognitive performance, local cooling groups showed to be more inclined for risk taking for more rewards compared to the control group. The performance of other cognitive tests showed no significant difference between the two groups, even though attention, working memory and creativity were enhanced slightly but insignificantly.

Conventional balance and gait assessments for fall risk screening are often conducted under unperturbed conditions. However, older adults can allocate their attention to motor tasks (balance or walking) without revealing performance deficiencies, posing a challenge in identifying those with compromised gait and balance.

Do community-dwelling older adults exhibit greater changes in cognitive and/or walking performance under balance-challenging conditions compared to typical dual-task walking conditions?

Twenty-nine healthy, community-dwelling older adults performed four cognitive tasks (visual and auditory Stroop tasks, Clock task, and Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test) while walking with and without lateral treadmill sways (Perturbed vs. Unperturbed) and during standing. We calculated dual-task costs (DTC) and walking perturbation effects (WPE) as the percentage of change in cognitive and walking performance between dual and single-task conditions and between Perturbed and Unperturbed conditions, respectively.

Older adults exhibited similar DTC and WPE on cognitive task performance. However, in walking performance, they demonstrated significantly greater WPE than DTC across all gait and stability measures (p < 0.01), including the mean and variability of stride and margins of stability (MOS) measures, the variability of trunk movement and lower-limb joint angles, and the local stability measures. Older adults took shorter but wider steps, exhibited shorter MOS_AP but greater MOS_ML, and experienced increased movement variability and walking instability to a greater extent than during dual-task walking. Overall, changes in variability and stability measures were more pronounced than those in mean gait measures.

Introducing destabilizing perturbations to increase the task demands of balance and gait assessments is a more effective method to challenge older adults compared to simply adding a concurrent cognitive task. Fall screening assessments for community-dwelling older adults should incorporate balance-challenging conditions, such as introducing gait perturbations.

Different stress models are employed to enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and explore potential interventions. However, the utility of these models remains a critical concern, as their validities may be limited by the complexity of stress processes. Literature review revealed that both mental and physical stress models possess reasonable construct and criterion validities, respectively reflected in psychometrically assessed stress ratings and in activation of the sympathoadrenal system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The findings are less robust, though, in the pharmacological perturbations’ domain, including such agents as adenosine or dobutamine. Likewise, stress models’ convergent- and discriminant validity vary depending on the stressors’ nature. Stress models share similarities, but also have important differences regarding their validities. Specific traits defined by the nature of the stressor stimulus should be taken into consideration when selecting stress models. Doing so can personalize prevention and treatment of stress-related antecedents, its acute processing, and chronic sequelae. Further work is warranted to refine stress models’ validity and customize them so they commensurate diverse populations and circumstances.

This study aims to assess effects of noise on physicians' stress levels and attention capacities within an emergency department.

In this prospective cross-sectional study, 15 physicians from a state hospital emergency department with 300,000 annual visits provided demographics, work factors, and physiologic data. Attention was evaluated through smartphone-based Stroop tests, while noise and heart rates were monitored via smartwatches.

Median physician age was 26, with 16 months' emergency department experience. Average sound intensity was 68.80 dB. Despite noise, physicians in green/yellow areas showed increased Stroop scores (p = 0.002). Heart rate responses correlated with noise changes. End-of-shift surveys highlighted physicians' adaptability and resilience to high noise levels.

Noisy emergency departments pose health risks to physicians, but noise-related stress did not significantly affect attention, beneficial for patient care.

Cardiovascular fitness (CRF) has been consistently linked to cognitive performance and academic achievement, and inhibitory control has been recognized as a key predictor of academic success. However, few studies have explored whether inhibitory control mediates the relationship between CRF and academic performance in children, and the existing findings are inconclusive because of certain limitations. This study investigated the mediating role of inhibitory control in the association between CRF and academic achievement among preadolescents while also addressing the related limitations. This study enrolled a total of 175 elementary school students (70 girls, mean age = 11.17 years, standard deviation = 0.7), who participated in a half-mile test for assessing their CRF level. Additionally, inhibitory control was measured using the Stroop Color and Word Test (Stroop test), and language and mathematics tests were administered to measure their academic performance. The results revealed that the participants with higher CRF levels achieved superior performance in tasks requiring a high level of inhibitory control (r = 0.291, P < 0.001) and in Chinese language (r = −0.415, P < 0.001) and mathematics (r = −0.366, P < 0.001) tests even when gender, age, and body fat were considered. Furthermore, a mediation analysis revealed that inhibitory control, as measured through the incongruent trials of the Stroop test, partially mediated the relationship between CRF and academic performance (language: indirect effect = −0.013, 95% CI [−0.019, −0.008]; math: indirect effect = −0.013, 95% CI [−0.021, −0.009]). These findings have major implications for child development, emphasizing the key role of inhibitory control in the beneficial effects of CRF on academic achievement.