Brain short-circuits

Awhile ago, I went to a psychiatrist for some assorted cognitive testing, and one of the tests made my brain argue with itself. 

The first page of one test is really simple. It’s about 50 color blocks, arranged in neat rows. The blocks are all either red, blue, or green. You just list them off, in order, as fast as you can. 

The second is also really simple. It’s 50 words in black ink, all either “red”, “blue”, or “orange”. Just read the words. Same deal, easy. 

The third is where it starts getting tricky. There are words again, and you read what the words say, but the words are printed in red, blue, and green ink, never aligning with what the word says. “Red” printed in blue, for example. That one takes some focusing. 

The fourth, again, words in colors, but some of the words are in boxes. You have to say what color the words are, except if the word is in a box, in which case you say the word itself. That one, I could feel the reading part of my brain and the color-recognition part fighting each other. At one point I said “orange”, despite orange being neither a color that was present or a color that could be made with the ones present. The lady gave me a bit of an odd look on that. 

It’s kinda fun when your brain stumbles over itself because a seemingly simple task is not going as planned.