Color Reading Optical Illusion

Read through this list of colors, only, instead of reading the word, say the color of each word.

See Another Random Optical Illusion

If you are like most people, you found this exercise hard.

Explanation

This is known as the Stroop Effect. It is due to the conflict between the direct interpretation or reading of the word and the perception, categorization and naming of the color of the letters. As you can imagine, seeing a color, identifying the color and categorizing it, translating that color into the word, and finally vocalizing the named color takes far more concentration than the natural tendency to simply read the word aloud. It has also been suggested that the task of saying the name of the color requires both hemispheres of the brain to work together.