Behavioral and electrophysiological investigation of semantic and response conflict in the Stroop task

Psychon Bull Rev. 2015 Apr;22(2):543-9. doi: 10.3758/s13423-014-0697-z.

Abstract

By combining the semantic Stroop paradigm (e.g., Klein in American Journal of Psychology 77:576-588, 1964) with a single-letter coloring (SLC) procedure (e.g., Besner et al. in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 4:221-225, 1997), this research investigated whether the frequently reported Stroop-related event-related potential (ERP) effect arising about 400 ms after stimulus onset (Ninc) is sensitive to the semantic and/or the response conflict. Consistent with our past findings (e.g., Augustinova et al. in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17:827-833, 2010), SLC speeded up reaction times for standard-incongruent items only, indicating that SLC reduced the response conflict that these (but not color-associated and neutral) items involve. Ninc amplitudes were more negative for standard-incongruent and color-associated than for color-neutral items. Importantly, this difference was not modulated by SLC. Hence, the behavioral and ERP results conjointly suggest that the Stroop-related Ninc is sensitive to semantic rather than to response and/or general conflict.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attention / physiology
  • Brain Mapping
  • Cerebral Cortex / physiology
  • Color Perception / physiology
  • Conflict, Psychological*
  • Contingent Negative Variation / physiology
  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology
  • Electroencephalography*
  • Evoked Potentials
  • Evoked Potentials, Visual / physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Semantics*
  • Stroop Test*
  • Young Adult