Highly Influential. View 4 excerpts, references results and background. Automaticity in reading and the Stroop task: testing the limits of involuntary word processing. View 1 excerpt, references background. Single letter coloring and spatial cuing eliminates a semantic contribution to the Stroop effect.
View 2 excerpts, references background. The interference of various word parts on color naming in the Stroop test.
This study compared the interfering effects of various word parts on performance of the Stroop task. In different conditions, the first, middle, and last two letters of a color word formed color … Expand. What kind of attention modulates the Stroop effect?
Stroop interference and negative priming: Problems with inferences from null results. Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: an integrative review. Optimal viewing position effect in word recognition: A challenge to current theory. Through the use of high- and low-frequency words of lengths 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11 letters, it is shown that the time it takes to name a word or to decide if a stimulus is a word or a nonword depends … Expand. A rational look at the emotional stroop phenomenon: a generic slowdown, not a stroop effect.
Letter visibility and the viewing position effect in visual word recognition. View 2 excerpts, references results and background. Related Papers. By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our Privacy Policy , Terms of Service , and Dataset License. On the other hand, in the incongruent condition color-associated words or color words , the name of the color conflicts with the semantics of the displayed word e.
RED written in green. This explains the longer RT for this condition compared to the control condition, as the participants have to perform a selection process, which takes time. The same reasoning could apply to the SLC condition. RTs are longer when participants must perform a selection process between two conflicting colors.
In the SLC condition, the conflict is not only in the case of incongruent words color-associated words or color words , but also in the neutral condition. Indeed, in the latter case, two colors are in conflict e.
Thus the difference observed between ALC condition and SLC condition for control condition could be the indicator of this selection process. In his study, Monahan observed that coloring one element differently from the other tended to increase the RT for congruent or neutral stimuli but not for the incongruent.
Thus, the observed decrease of the Stroop interference could probably be due to an increase RT in the control condition rather than a decrease in the incongruent condition. Like Monahan , in their first experiment they observed that the decrease of the Stroop effect in the SLC condition was due to an enhancement of the RT for neutral words and not a decrease of RT for classical incongruent words.
In their second experiment, which was very similar, they used cueing. The arrow was absent in the first experiment. They observed the same result as in Experiment 1: the decrease of the Stroop effect was due to an increased of RT for neutral words but not for incongruent conditions. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make conclusions on semantic access with the various studies cited above, because they did not use the color-associated word condition.
Augustinova and Ferrand used the manipulation of Manwell et al. They had a classical condition and a color-associated word condition. The participant had to orally indicate the color of the letter cued by an arrow.
This letter was always the first letter of the word. The results clearly showed a decrease in the classical Stroop effect as observed in the previous studies, but no reduction of the semantically-based Stroop effect. The same was seen when the condition consisted of a single letter colored differently from the other letters Experiment 1A or when one letter was colored and the rest of the word was gray Experiment 1B.
These results tended to show that a semantic conflict existed between the naming of the color and the word itself. More recently, Augustinova, et al. This result was obtained with the inclusion of 79 participants compared with 16 by Manwell et al. The disappearance of the effect observed by Manwell et al. Augustinova et al. The various authors cited above agree on the fact that coloring a single letter differently from the others may lead to a reduction of the classical Stroop effect.
Several explanatory hypotheses are supported: blocking access to the semantics of the word Besner et al. However, recent studies suggest that access to the semantics of the word would be preserved if we looked at the color-associated word condition.
Thus the fluctuation observed during the SLC condition is probably due to the decrease of another factor interfering with the Stroop task. It is more probable that the SLC design simply reduces the non-semantic response competition.
In parallel with these studies, other authors have been interested in the reduction of the Stroop effect by social context. Summary of experiments studying the effect of the presence of others on a Stroop task.
To study the impact of social context on cognitive performance, Huguet et al. They showed that in the presence of a co-actor, or simply a presence inactive , the Stroop effect decreased in comparison with a situation where the participant was alone in the room.
This reduction of the Stroop effect suggested that semantic access in the classical Stroop effect could be reduced in presence of others. To verify that this decrease was not simply a question of motivation, Huguet, Dumas, and Monteil used the same paradigm and, to one group, proposed an extrinsic motivation a financial compensation to each person obtaining a good result.
No significant difference was found between the group that received the financial compensation and the group that did not. These authors observed a decrease of the Stroop effect in both groups when a co-actor was present. In , Dumas, Huguet, Monteil and Ayme used the same protocol but with a group with no other person present but simply a comparison of their results on computer with a fictitious co-actor. This study showed a decrease in the Stroop effect only when the co-actor was faster, whether they were physically present in the room or not.
This study showed that unfavorable social comparison, more than the presence of others, could be the cause of a reduction of the Stroop effect and temporarily block semantic access of the word. Conty, Gimmig, Belletier, George and Huguet showed that the results were influenced more by the feeling of being watched than by the presence of others.
In this study, the participant had to perform a Stroop task but a picture with eyes that were either open or closed was positioned above the item. If the eyes were open, they either looked directly at the participant or they looked away. Conty et al.
To summarize, all these studies tended to show a decrease in the classical Stroop effect in the presence of other persons as co-actor, a simple presence. In addition, recent studies have shown that, more than the presence of another person, it is the meaning we give to this presence which is important. Similar effects were observed without the physical presence of another person but with a simple visual picture or information on the performance of others. In addition, the observed decrease was even stronger when the participant knew that he would have to complete a questionnaire on his impressions at the end of the task, compared with when he did not know.
Klauer et al. More interestingly, the decrease was not seen when the control condition was composed of neutral words instead of simple crosses XXXX. Very recently, Augustinova and Ferrand b conducted two experiments measuring the impact of social presence on the semantically-based Stroop effect.
The first experiment consisted of a cross-like control condition XXXX while the second used neutral words. Both experiments used vocal answers. However, the same was not seen for the semantically-based Stroop effect. In conclusion, we can see that in all the previous studies, the classical Stroop effect seems to be reduced when there are other people present or when the situation leads to an unfavorable social comparison.
These data seem to indicate that semantic access could be temporarily stopped, therefore it cannot be automatic. Several criticisms can be made of these studies.
Firstly, Huguet et al. Moreover, as we have previously seen, it is this condition which is essential for concluding a decrease of semantic access. This is especially true in the case of Klauer et al. Note 1. Note 2. The study of Goldfarb et al. The fact that this study is on a single participant explains the lack of p values. In parallel with the studies cited above, other authors have studied a phenomenon that reduces the Stroop effect: suggestion.
Suggestion is the act of leading the participant, with the help of a simple sentence, towards an action that they would not otherwise have tended to perform. This phenomenon is a derivative of hypnosis techniques.
In , Raz et al. In fact, hypnosis does not function on everyone. Under hypnosis, the participants of Raz et al. The classical Stroop effect was eliminated for these participants when compared with those that were not under hypnosis. These results were found when comparing incongruent items with neutral words or congruent items.
The reduction of the Stroop effect was not observed with participants who were not susceptible to hypnosis. These results suggested that, when a person was susceptible to hypnosis, he would be able to ignore the meaning of a word as suggested by the suggestion and to focus only on the color of the word.
This effect would seem to indicate a temporary blocking of semantic access. Following this study, MacLeod and Sheehan reported the case of a patient with somnambulism reputed to be highly susceptible to hypnosis in whom the classical Stroop interference was reduced after having received hypnotic induction and suggestion.
In this context, it was possible that participants susceptible to hypnosis actually blurred their vision in order to perceive only the color of the letter despite an instruction not to do this. This case was not a cognitive process which was modified by suggestion.
Thus, Raz, et al. The study showed that, despite the inability to blur their vision, participants in the posthypnotic suggestion condition had a reduced classical Stroop effect. This result suggested that these participants correctly visualized the words and it was, therefore, the semantic access which was being temporary blocked.
The results also showed that participants who were not susceptible to hypnosis, but who were asked to look into the corner of the computer screen and not at the item, had a reduced classical Stroop effect in the same way as those who were highly susceptible. The objective was to study the activation of the ACC anterior cingulate cortex during a hypnotic suggestion.
Moreover, the ERPs showed a decrease in posterior activation when participants were under hypnotic suggestion, which is an additional indicator of the reduced activation of visual areas. This study showed that hypnotic suggestion was able to influence behavior by influencing brain structures. The fact that the ACC was activated less under hypnotic suggestion seemed to indicate that the conflict had not been detected or treated.
Therefore, the color to be named did not create a conflict with the semantics of the word. All the studies cited above were made on participants with a hypnotic induction.
Raz, Kirsch, Pollard and Nitkin-Kanner a showed that the hypnotic induction, even if it helped further reduce the Stroop effect, was not essential for the reduction of the Stroop effect, as similar results were obtained when a simple suggestion was given to participants who were highly susceptible to hypnosis but without hypnotic induction. The authors again noticed a decrease in the Stroop effect. In other words, a simple suggestion without hypnotic induction could decrease the classical Stroop effect for participants highly susceptible to hypnosis.
The same results were observed more recently by Raz and Campbell In their study, they observed a reduction on the classical Stroop effect for participants highly susceptible to hypnosis when they received a hypnotic suggestion, compared with when they did not.
However, observation of negative priming by these authors conduced them to conclude that suggestion appeared to have an influence on both the participants susceptible to hypnosis and those who were not. This influence appeared greater in the participants susceptible to hypnosis, because the effect of suggestion is also visible on the classical Stroop effect.
Furthermore, Rubichi, Ricci, Padovani and Scaglietti hypothesized that participants with a high level of susceptibility to hypnosis also have, in normal conditions, a higher level of attention. This would explain why the hypnotic suggestions have more influence on them. In their study, they compared the results to a Stroop task under normal conditions without suggestion. They found that those with a high level of susceptibility to hypnosis had less Stroop interference than those with a low susceptibility to hypnosis.
This latest study suggested that these participants were more attentive to the task, and therefore more efficient in normal conditions, without hypnotic suggestion. Regarding the particularity of the participants who were highly susceptibility to hypnosis, Casiglia et al. The hemodynamic response is a cardiology response of the circulatory system to stimuli seen as stressor. This latter measure allowed the authors to determine that the participants not susceptible to hypnosis perceived the Stroop task as a stressor, while this was no longer the case for the individuals who were highly susceptible to hypnosis during the hypnotic induction.
In a stress state, the dominant response is more salient. In this case, reading the word. Recently, Goldfarb, Aisenberg and Henik used social priming in a Stroop task to observe the effect of a suggestion on the Stroop effect in a series of three experiments. Dyslectics are known to have reading problems. This activation, which can be seen as a suggestion, triggers this concept and its subsequent effect on behavior Bargh, , This effect is very specific, because the authors did not observe a diminution on a subsequent Stroop task when the questionnaire was about dyscalculia Experiment 2 or painter Experiment 3.
This effect is preserved with a congruent condition or neutral word as control condition. In summary, recent studies have shown that the Stroop effect can be modulated according to the instructions given and the susceptibility or not to this suggestion. The reduction of the Stroop effect in these studies seems to indicate the possibility of temporarily blocking semantic access, but no purely semantic measures have been studied.
As we saw previously, it is primarily the color-associated word Stroop condition which is indicative of a semantic conflict, yet this condition was absent in these studies. Augustinova and Ferrand a measured the impact of suggestion on the semantically-based Stroop effect. In their two experiments, the same suggestion given by Raz et al. The results showed a decrease in the classical Stroop effect when these participants received the suggestion compared with when they did not.
But no decrease was observed in the semantically-based Stroop interference. In conclusion, a decrease in the semantic access in a Stroop task was not observed when semantic access was correctly measured. This result seemed to suggest that the decrease in the Stroop effect was more an attentional effect than an effect on semantic access in hypnosis or in the suggestion condition.
Indeed, Casiglia et al. Consequently, participants who were not susceptible to hypnosis seemed more stressed by the task and had fewer attentional resources. Finally, it is undeniable that hypnosis, especially suggestion, may have an impact on our perceptions and feelings but it does not necessarily affect semantic access.
As we have seen, in recent years three new manipulations of the Stroop task have shown a reduction of the Stroop effect: coloring a letter differently from the others Besner et al. These three paradigms have jointly been able to decrease a robust effect that, since , has led to the belief that reading and semantic access of a word might be automatic.
The results of their experiments clearly show that a reduction and even an elimination of the Stroop effect is possible under certain conditions. Nevertheless, is it probably premature to talk about semantic blocking. When this condition was added, no decrease of the semantically-based Stroop effect was observed Augustinova et al. The results favored an automatic semantic access. In addition, we have seen throughout this review that authors often confuse a lack of statistical effect with the disappearance of a behavioral effect.
In agreement with this latter point, Heil, Rolke and Pecchinenda explained that, in an analysis of behavioral measures, a lack of an effect in the RT remains problematic. Thus, one might think that this measure is not sensitive enough to detect the presence of a specific effect.
The measurement of the RT does, in fact, include several processes. In the case of the Stroop task, we can have: a perceptual process that allows the viewing of the item, the various processes of reading which have been previously mentioned the level of the letters, the lexical and the semantic level , and a process that gives the responses including the analysis of possible responses, the preparation of a movement, and finally the movement itself.
It is therefore difficult to know what exactly was measured by the RT and what processes were affected by any manipulation. Consequently, we cannot really know if we are measuring semantic access, a phenomenon that is linked to vision, or the preparation of the answer. Heil et al. Another problem with the studies previously cited is about the definition of automaticity. For this review, we used the standard definition used in cited studies: a process is said to be automatic if it appears without intention and without attentional resources.
This view is a binary view. A process is either automatic or not. In this perspective, a process is seen as more automatic the less attention is need. This explanation is well illustrated by the model of Cohen, Dunbar and McClelland and the learning process used to explain the Stroop task. In this connectionist model, automatic process is learned with an enhancement of the link between process and answer. The more the system learns a link, the more the task is done quickly and the less attention is needed.
This is not a binary view. The difficulty of attaining a clear consensus about semantic access could be due to this lack of definition.
Using a continuum perspective, semantic access could probably be considered as automatic in the sense that only particularly special circumstances could question this access.
On close scrutiny tough, the PC effect results from a correlation between specific words and specific responses in the experiment. This relation is termed the contingency-learning account of Stroop and PC effects Schmidt and Besner, ; Schmidt, a , b , ; Schmidt et al.
The contingency account readily explains the PC effect:. As such, color words are strongly predictive of the congruent response, which benefits congruent trials. On incongruent trials e. The net result is an increased Stroop effect. In the mostly incongruent condition, the situation is reversed.
Depending on the exact manipulation, color words might be presented most often in a specific incongruent color e. Thus, words are accurately predictive of the incongruent response, and mispredict a congruent response. The net effect is a reduced congruency Stroop effect. What is most interesting about the contingency learning account of the PC effect is that it is unrelated to conflict, control… [On this account], learning of stimulus—response correspondences is all that matters.
Schmidt, a , p. We should mention that in general contingency learning is not related to attention per se. However, it is an important contextual factor within the Stroop domain after all, Stroop is a test of selective attention. Within the Stroop task, contingency affects the selectivity of attention to the stimulus attributes, hence the magnitude of the Stroop effect observed.
The color-word correlation account by Melara and Algom and the word-response contingency account by Schmidt explain variations in the magnitude of the Stroop effect without any reference to the notions of control and conflict adaptation. The two accounts actually complement each other. On both views, the Stroop effect is the result of perception of correlation or contingency in the data see also Lorentz et al.
The correlation and contingency accounts rest on a common principle, but a word seems in order to clarify their distinct roles in the Stroop domain. In the study by Dishon-Berkovits and Algom , incongruent stimuli appeared only once under some conditions so that contingency learning was impossible , yet the authors showed how color-word correlation produced their results in this unusual matrix. In summary, both the correlation and the contingency varieties are useful in accounting for Stroop results.
Significantly, they do so without appeal to central control, conflict, or conflict adaptation. As we recounted at the outset, the Gratton effect Gratton et al. To reconstruct the chronology, the original finding by Gratton and her colleagues Gratton et al.
Since the publication of the Botvinick et al. Given the role of the Gratton effect in deciding the fate of the conflict-monitoring model as a Stroop theory, we devote some space to elucidate the ongoing debate. The Gratton effect is the sequential variation by which the RT to a Stroop-incongruent stimulus is faster after experiencing another Stroop-incongruent stimulus than after experiencing a Stroop-congruent stimulus e.
Less attention has been given to the parallel observation that RT to a Stroop-congruent stimulus is usually faster after experiencing another Stroop-congruent stimulus than after experiencing a Stroop-incongruent stimulus e. This latter observation alone should have cast doubts on the validity of the conflict monitoring model as a Stroop theory. After all, congruent-congruent sequences do not entail high conflict, yet these sequences affect Stroop performance to the same extent as do incongruent-incongruent sequences.
The possibility that both types of sequences are accounted by factors unrelated to conflict becomes all the more likely.
The focus on incongruent-incongruent sequences in the literature comes from the theoretical stress on conflict and its on-line resolution. On that view, the role of fine-grain central control during Stroop performance is to enhance target color processing and reduce task-irrelevant word processing on a trial-by-trial basis.
It is these top-down penetrations that produce the Gratton effect: experiencing conflict instantly triggers control activity, which results in better performance on the immediately following trial. Barely a year after the formal development of the central-conflict-monitoring model Botvinick et al.
In their seminal study, Mayr et al. According to the conflict monitoring model, the incongruent-incongruent sequence of RED in green-RED in green complete repetition should produce the same adaptation as the incongruent-incongruent sequence of RED in green-BLUE in yellow complete change. According to conflict monitoring theory, it is the conflict that counts, not the means of generating it.
Mayr et al. They recorded the typical Gratton effect in their experiment. However, when the authors examined their data separately for sequences of complete repetition and sequences entailing change, they found the Gratton effect only for the former. The authors then conceived a second flanker experiment where immediate complete repetitions were eliminated altogether and where response repetitions were also eliminated by presenting the flanker display horizontally or vertically on alternate trials and requiring appropriate left-right or up-down responses.
Note that the absence of repetitions is irrelevant for the conflict monitoring account, but it is critical for accounts based on input-driven processes in particular, on priming of complete repetitions. The latter account predicts that eliminating repetitions should eliminate the Gratton effect. Consistent with this prediction, no Gratton effect was observed in Mayr et al. The conflict monitoring account, by contrast, lacks a mechanism that allows for adaptation to occur across non-conflicting intermediate trials.
The results disconfirmed the central-control model, showing instead the presence of adaptation across non-adjacent repetitions. The Mayr et al. To remove the biases from the Stroop-, Simon-, and the flanker-task by far the most popular test used , succeeding investigators applied both of Mayr et al.
The first approach allows for stimulus repetitions complete or of component features to occur but removes them statistically in subsequent analysis e. In the second approach, stimulus and response repetitions are not presented or allowed in the experiment itself. To exclude repetitions from the experimental design, most researchers employed Mayr et al.
The overall results obtained in both approaches do not support the conflict monitoring account. Because our goal in this critique is conceptual scrutiny, we next highlight just a few important points again, see Schmidt, , for a detailed review of recent research. If the Gratton effect still emerges under such conditions, the central control account is bestowed powerful support. Consequently, strenuous attempts have been made to purge all species of stimulus- and response-based contingencies from the experiment.
Unfortunately, the elimination of the confounds came at the cost of eliminating the flanker task itself, i. The popular tactic has been using Mayr et al. However, this tactic likely compromised the nature of the flanker task as an interference design, so that the results obtained probably hinged on the perceived validity of the advance cue. We note in parenthesis that the alternation procedure itself might invite unrelated processes into the experiment e.
The following Gedanken experiment can clarify this issue, i. Suppose that the target display is a shape in color and that the task is to name the color. On different trials, the shape can be a triangle or a circle and its color can be red or green. Suppose further that the display is preceded by a prime, a patch of red or green color. The prime-probe experiments in the literature, while tightly controlled for stimulus and response confounds, might not comprise a real test of the source of the Gratton effect.
The results obtained in the confound-free, prime-probe, and temporal flaker experiments are commensurably mixed and difficult to interpret. Some studies reported the Gratton effect e. For example, Weissman et al.
Note that a negative Gratton effect is impossible under conflict monitoring. Considering the Stroop effect itself, methodological problems have been plaguing that research, too. Following the Mayr et al. Only a truly random allocation of the colors to the words can eliminate this bias. However, even this regime is open to further biases related to stimulus sequences.
Removing all confounds from the Stroop task if at all possible remains a daunting task Mordkoff, ; see also Sabri et al. Existing research did not match those exacting standards. The problems granted, most important for the present concerns is the uniform absence of adaptation or the Gratton effect in the classic Stroop task, a consistent result in studies using either the statistical approach or the experimental approach [we should mention that Duthoo et al.
We conclude with four final observations. First, the hallmark of modern Gratton research is the stimulus dependence of adaptation. Minor changes in preparation and paradigm can determine the presence or magnitude of the Gratton effect.
For example, in prime-probe studies, the spatial location of the prime and the probe same, different greatly affects the outcome. In a similar vein, stimulus overlap and response overlap in cross-task Gratton studies are a major determinant of adaptation. These observations violate the basic assumption of the conflict monitoring account on the stimulus-independence of adaptation. Second, another basic if unarticulated assumption of conflict monitoring is that adaptation is task-independent. In violation of this assumption, recent research has shown that adaptation is singularly task-dependent.
The Gratton effect can be observed in the Simon task but not in the Stroop or in the flanker task using the same design within the same study Weissman et al. Conflict adaptation typically does not generalize across tasks. And, when conflict in the Stroop task results in adaptation on the next conflict trial in the Simon task, the transfer is typically explained by shared features and task sources.
Third, the observation that congruent-congruent sequences produce the same result as incongruent-incongruent sequences implies that the Gratton effect is not related to conflict. Our fourth and final observation is methodological. However, all interferences or conflict tasks are not the same Chajut et al. Thus, the flanker and Simon tasks entail spatial attention, with targets and distractors separated in space.
The Stroop task, by contrast, does not entail spatial attention: The color and the word occupy the same location in space, so that space-based attention to isolate the target is impossible. In the Stroop task, people dissect mentally the stimulus object in order to respond to the task-relevant feature. On balance, the available evidence with regard to the Stroop or Gratton effect is inconsistent with the theory of centrally guided conflict monitoring account.
Instead, it is local, input-driven bottom-up processes that likely generate the Gratton phenomenon when it is observed.
It is important to bear in mind that there is in fact a long history of research on sequential effects in the Stroop task. Dalrymple-Alford and Budayr may have been the first authors to report such effects more than half of century ago.
In subsequent research, a fair number of sequential effects have been documented, some entailing interference and some, like the Gratton effect, facilitation see MacLeod, , for a review. Notably, none of the authors associated with the various effects thought it necessary to evoke the heavy machinery of centrally controlled conflict management as an explanatory device.
Given the variety of sequential effects identified within basic Stroop research, the reader may well perceive that there is something not altogether satisfactory about the disproportionate exposure and study of a single facilitatory effect. The reason not justification for that one-sided research is obvious: the Gratton effect has been imported to a theory and domain, which, at its roots, is foreign to the Stroop effect.
Performance in the Stroop task and the resulting Stroop effect does not seem to involve higher-order cognitive level processes of control, nor does it seem likely that minute top-down penetrations determine responding in the Stroop and allied tasks.
The particular theoretical embodiment assuming such trial-by-trial top-down penetrations, the account called conflict monitoring, is not optimally suited to explain the gamut of results obtained over the years in the vast Stroop literature. The conflict monitoring account even does not recognize the existence of major Stroop variables apart from the duo of the PC and Gratton effects see MacLeod, and Melara and Algom, , for reviews of Stroop research.
Focusing solely on that pair of effects, most monitoring studies are compromised by the input-based confounds noted. The few confound-free studies that did demonstrate adaptation most did not — allegedly supporting central control — ignored alternative input-based explanations, at once more plausible and parsimonious.
We believe that the converging evidence provided by the findings reviewed in this article confirms the lawful dependence of the Stroop effect on input factors and seriously challenges centrally controlled conflict monitoring as a valid theory of the Stroop effect. All facets of the effect are explained in a straightforward fashion by input-driven selective attention indeed, its failure.
Concerning the PC and Gratton effects in particular, all that is truly involved is perception of color-word correlation and of word-response contingency. This much granted, we realize that conflict monitoring modelers e. This way of reasoning is depicted in Figure 6. Conflict monitoring theory basically entails that conflict B drives control C so that they produce the Stroop outcome including notably PC and Gratton effects D.
Monitoring modelers probably have no problems with the link between A , the basic Stroop variables reviewed in this paper, and B. At a first glance, the relation between A and B , the primary theme of this review, might be regarded as orthogonal to the validity of the conflict monitoring account.
However, the present review makes it eminently clear that one can get directly from A to D , so that B and C are not needed. In other words, once one is willing to accept the principles learned from basic Stroop research, then conflict monitoring and control are superfluous added assumptions. Figure 6. Possible chain of reasoning accommodating both the basic Stroop findings reviewed in the paper and the conflict monitoring and control account.
The conflict monitoring model basically entails that B and C produce D. However, since it is possible to get directly from A to D, the conflict monitoring model is gratuitous as a Stroop theory. Of course, there is a trivial sense in which people willfully apply control over what they do and experience. They come to the lab as planned, they choose to perform with their eyes open, and they are in charge of many other perfunctory chores.
In the Stroop task itself, people follow quite successfully the instructions to name the colors and ignore overtly at the least the words. Indeed, there are task-demand units already included in the computational model of Cohen et al. For example, in the study by Bauer and Besner , the mental set espoused by the observer determined the Stroop outcome with the same stimuli and the same responses.
We acknowledge of course these instances of control, but they do not serve nor are they meant to serve as a comprehensive theory of the Stroop effect. Pursuant to the previous point, we also acknowledge that the control and conflict monitoring account include the notion of attention.
By contrast, attention as studied in the Stroop literature is a well-defined process of selectivity. It is concerned with determining the quality of focusing on the task relevant attribute while ignoring irrelevant information.
The whole process is governed by bottom-up contextual factors. Perhaps, also, there would be something instructive to be gained from the way that proponents of control theory come close to espousing the present view in certain cases. These researchers are just unable to jettison the underdefined concept of control even when clearly unwarranted to make their case.
Thus, Julie Bugg, a leading investigator of control, proposed to classify the accounts of Stroop performance into expectation-based and strategically guided accounts versus experience-based and reactive adjustment accounts e. However, such activations have not been shown to be uniquely linked to a specific act or task, and, in any case, recording activation in brain loci does not ipso facto comprise a theory and explanation.
Our skeptical conclusions agree with those arrived by Schmidt and by Firestone and Firestone and Scholl in the general domain of alleged top-down influences in perception.
To echo Firestone , the deepest shortcoming of central conflict monitoring theory is not the lack of support in most available evidence, but that it is simply the wrong kind of theory for the Stroop effect that it has appropriated from input-driven attention. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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