Development and Testing of a Modified Version of Stroop Test for the Assessment of Sexual Functioning: A Modified Sexual Stroop Test in Persian Language (MSST-Persian)

Abstract

Aim: Modified versions of the Stroop task have been used in various kinds of clinical conditions. The aim of this study was to develop a Sexual Stroop Task.

Method: This study consists of two phases. First phase included designing the sexual Stroop task after searching and selecting Persian sexual and neutral words, and the second phase was related to the pilot study. For finding Persian sexual words, we used four different methods but for neutral words we used the words used in other Stroop studies. Then, we came up with 2 general categories as neutral and sexual words which were randomly specified as green and red colors. The developed computerized version of the Sexual Stroop Task was run on 69 participants as a pilot study.

Results: Participants (N=69) had longer response times for words related to sex in comparison to neutral words. And the total time which was spent on sexual words was more than the total time for neutral words. The percentage of the correct neutral words was also higher than correct neutral words.

Conclusion: This preliminary study presented a new version of emotional Stoop test that seems to be a promising instrument to study the neuropsychological aspects of sexuality.