Order of Stimulus Presentation Modulates Interference in Stroop Matching Tasks: a Reaction Time Study
Main Article Content
Abstract
In the classic Stroop effect, the time spent to name the color of an incongruent stimulus (GREEN in blue) is longer than the time necessary to name the color of a congruent stimulus (BLUE in blue). In the “Stroop matching task”, volunteers are instructed to compare attributes of two stimuli, in which one of them is necessarily a Stroop stimulus. Our aim was to investigate whether the order of stimulus presentation can explain some contradictory results and reveal the imposition of high-order cognitive resources in conflict resolution. Our results confirmed that the strategy adopted in the task depended on the order in which stimuli were presented. In the “Stroop-Bar” order, using the interval between stimuli to solve the conflict inherent to the Stroop stimulus is possible, which is otherwise not possible in the “Bar-Stroop” order. However, these strategies cannot explain the discrepancy in the results reported in the literature.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright to articles published in The Journal Of Psychology: Theory and Practice belongs to the authors, who grant Mackenzie Presbyterian University the not exclusive rights to publish the content.
References
Banich, M. T. (2009). Executive function: the search for an integrated account. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(2), 89-94.
Caldas, A. L., Machado-Pinheiro, W., Souza, L. B., Motta-Ribeiro, G. C., & David, I. A. (2012). The Stroop matching task presents conflict at both the response and nonresponse levels: an event-related potential and electromyography study. Psychophysiology, 49, 1215-1224.
David, I. A., Volchan, E., Vila, J., Keil, A., de Oliveira, L., Faria-Junior, A. J. P., Perakakis, P., Dias, E. C., Mocaiber, I., Pereira, M. G., & Machado-Pinheiro, W. (2011). Stroop matching task: role of feature selection and temporal modulation. Experimental Brain Research, 208(4), 595-605.
Duncan-Johnson, C. C., & Kopell, B. S. (1981). The Stroop effect: brain potentials localize the source of interference. Science, 214, 938-940.
Durgin, F. H. (2003). Translation and competition among internal representations in a reverse Stroop effect. Perception and Psychophysics, 65(3), 367-378.
Dyer, F. N. (1973). Same and different judgments for word-color pairs with “irrelevant” words or colors: evidence for word-code comparisons. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 98(1), 102-108.
Glaser, W. R., & Glaser, M. O. (1989). Context effects in Stroop-like word and picture processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118(1), 13-42.
Goldfarb, L., & Henik, A. (2006). New data analysis of the Stroop matching task calls for a reevaluation of theory. Psychological Science, 17(2), 96-100.
Ilan, A. B., & Polich, J. (1999). P300 and response time from a manual Stroop task. Clinical Neurophysiology, 110, 367-373.
Luo, C. R. (1999). Semantic competition as the basis of Stroop interference: evidence from color-word matching tasks. Psychological Science, 10, 35-40.
MacDonald , A. W., Cohen, J. D., Stenger, V. A., & Cater, C. S. (2000). Dissociating the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex in cognitive control. Science, 288(9), 1835-1838.
Machado-Pinheiro, W., Volchan, E., Vila, J., Dias, E. C., Alfradique, I., Oliveira, L., Pereira, M. G., & David, I. A. (2010). Role of attention and translation in conflict resolution: implications for Stroop matching task interference. Psychology and Neuroscience, 3(2), 141-150.
MacLeod, C. M., & MacDonald, P. A. (2000). Interdimensional interference in the Stroop effect: uncovering the cognitive and neural anatomy of attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(10), 383-391.
Milham, M. P., Banich, M. T., Webb, A., Barad, V., Cohen, N. J., Wszalek, A. F., & Kramer, A. F. (2001). The relative involvement of anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex in attentional control depends on nature of conflict. Cognitive Brain Research, 12, 467-473.
Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167-202.
Posner, M. I., & Digirolamo, G. J. (1998). Executive attention: conflict, target detection, and cognitive control. In R. Parasuraman (Ed.). The attentive brain (pp. 401-423). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643-662.
Sugg, M. J., & McDonald, J. E. (1994). Time course of inhibition in color-response and word-response versions of the Stroop task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20(3), 647-675.
Treisman, A., & Fearnley, S. (1969). The Stroop test: selective attention to colours and words. Nature, 222(5192), 437-439.
Virzi, R. A., & Egeth, H. E. (1985). Toward a translational model of Stroop interference. Memory and Cognition, 13(4), 304-319..