Is There Semantic Conflict in the Stroop Task?

Abstract

Abstract. This research addressed current controversies concerning the contribution of semantic conflict to the Stroop interference effect and its reduction by a single-letter coloring and cueing procedure. On the first issue, it provides, for the first time, unambiguous evidence for a contribution of semantic conflict to the (overall) Stroop interference effect. The reported data remained inconclusive on the second issue, despite being collected in a considerable sample and analyzed with both classical (frequentist) and Bayesian inferential approaches. Given that in all past Stroop studies, semantic conflict was possibly confounded with either response conflict (e.g., when semantic-associative items [ SKYblue] are used to induce semantic conflict) or with facilitation (when color-congruent items [ BLUEblue] are used as baseline to derive a magnitude for semantic conflict), its genuine contribution to the Stroop interference effect is the most critical result reported in the present study. Indeed, it leaves no doubt – in complete contrast to dominant single-stage response competition models (e.g., Roelofs, 2003 ) – that selection occurs at the semantic level in the Stroop task. The immediate implications for the composite (as opposed to unitary) nature of the Stroop interference effect and other still unresolved issues in the Stroop literature are outlined further.

Neural correlates of adaptive cognitive control in working memory

“…Whereas no effects were found using a color-word Stroop task (Larson et al, 2009(Larson et al, , 2012 or an auditory Stroop task (Donohue et al, 2012), studies using a counting Stroop task or a confound-minimized prime-probe task using arrows (Larson et al, 2016) found that the N450 was modulated by previous conflict. Interference in the Stroop task can be attributed to semantic conflict as the color of the presented color-word stimulus interferes with the semantic meaning of the color-word (see, e.g., Burca et al, 2021;De Houwer, 2003;van Veen & Carter, 2005), and a similar reasoning can be applied to other Stroop-like paradigms (Kałamała et al, 2020). Retrieval conflict elicited during our WM task can also be seen as a form of semantic conflict, which would explain why conflict and post-conflict adaptation modulated the N450 in our task.…”

On the association between intention and visual word identification.

“…This is also true for the semantic Stroop task variant using colour-related words, although this claim is more controversial (see Besner & Young, 2024;Labuschagne & Besner, 2015;Kahan et al, 2006;Manwell et al, 2004vs. Augustinova & Ferrand, 2014Burca et al, 2021). The need for spatial attention has also been well documented in tasks other than Stroop (e.g., lexical decision and reading aloud; e.g., see INTENTION AND WORD IDENTIFICATION Lachter et al, 2004;McCann et al, 1992).…”

“…This account is prevalent in introductory psychology textbooks, cognitive psychology textbooks, chapters, and literally hundreds of refereed journal articles (e.g., see Augustinova & Ferrand, 2012a, 2014; Brown et al, 2002; Burca et al, 2021). Indeed, a brief survey of nine cognition textbooks taken more or less at random from our bookshelves revealed that “the” Stroop effect is consistently taken to indicate that word identification occurs in the absence of any intention on the part of the reader; indeed, that it cannot be prevented from occurring.…”

“…It is sufficient that a prior process has been stopped;Neely and Kahan (2001) make this point explicitly. It should also be noted that the Augustinova laboratory (seeAugustinova & Ferrand, 2014;Burca et al, 2021) takes the position that there is no convincing evidence that the semantic Stroop effect is influenced by colouring only a single letter and spatial cuing. Their experiments do not, however, implement procedural details thatBesner and Young (2024) see as important, in particular spacing between the letters when crossed with the spatial attention manipulation.INTENTION AND WORD IDENTIFICATION…”

“…Thus, if one wants to investigate “truly” automatic processing of a learned and quintessential human ability, it is no surprise that many of the processes associated with visual word identification (e.g., feature activation; letter activation; orthographic word level activation; application of sublexical spelling-sound correspondences; lexical phonology activation; semantic activation) have been viewed as strong contenders for this status. Yet many of the writings about the putative automaticity of visual word recognition adopt a discrete rather than a continuous perspective, at least as it applies to the case of highly skilled readers (e.g., Augustinova & Ferrand, 2012a, 2012b, 2014; Brown et al, 2002; Burca et al, 2021; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Lien et al, 2006; Marcel, 1983; Neely, 1977; Neely & Kahan, 2001; Paap & Herdman, 1998; Posner & Snyder, 1975; among many others). Consequently, it is this skill—visual word identification—that is the focus of this article.…”