In psychology, the emotional Stroop task is used as an information-processing approach to assessing emotions. Like the standard Stroop effect, the emotional Stroop test works by examining the response time of the participant to name colors of words presented to them. Unlike the traditional Stroop effect, the words presented either relate to specific emotional states or disorders, or they are neutral (e.g., "watch", "bottle", "sky"). For example, depressed participants will be slower to say the color of depressing words rather than non-depressing words. Non-clinical subjects have also been shown to name the color of an emotional word (e.g., "war", "cancer", "kill") slower than naming the color of a neutral word (e.g., "clock", "lift", "windy"). Negative words selected for the emotional Stroop task can be either preselected by researchers or taken from the lived experiences of participants completing the task. Typically, when asked to identify the color of the words presented to them, participants reaction times for negative emotional words is slower than the identification of the color of neutral words. While it has been shown that those in negative moods tend to take longer to respond when presented with negative word stimuli, this is not always the case when participants are presented with words that are positive or more neutral in tone. While the emotional Stroop task and the classic Stroop effect elicit similar behavioral outcomes (a slowing in response times to colored words), these tests engage different mechanisms of interference. The classic Stroop test creates a conflict between an incongruent color and word (the word "RED" in font color blue) but the emotional Stroop involves only emotional and neutral words—color does not affect slowing because it does not conflict with word meaning. In other words, studies show the same effects of slowing for emotional words relative to neutral even if all the words are black. Thus, the emotional Stroop does not involve an effect of conflict between a word meaning and a color of text, but rather appears to capture attention and slow response time due to the emotional relevance of the word for the individual. Both the standard Stroop effect and the emotional Stoop task have high test-retest reliability. There are variations to the emotional Stroop task; participants may not always be asked to identify the color of the word presented to them, but instead they may be asked to respond to other stimuli present. Clinical Applications Both