Object-based attentional selection can modulate the Stroop effect

Wühr, Peter; Waszak, Florian

doi:10.3758/bf03196450

Cited by 35 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Wühr and Waszak (2003) showed that irrelevant color word distractors have much larger effects in the Stroop task when the distractor and color target are parts of the same object than when they are separate. Cho, Lien, and Proctor (2006) demonstrated that little Stroop effect occurs when the color target includes the diluter but that a large Stroop effect occurs when the color target includes the distractor, regardless of whether the color carrier is at fixation or at a peripheral location.…”

Section: Simon Dilutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dilution of compatibility effects in Simon-type tasks depends on categorical similarity between distractors and diluters

Miles

Yamaguchi

Proctor

2009

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

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1598Performance of choice reaction tasks is influenced by the features of task stimuli, even when those features are irrelevant to response selection. For example, in Stroop tasks, response times (RTs) are longer when task-relevant and -irrelevant stimulus features are incompatible with one another than when they are compatible (Stroop, 1935; see MacLeod, 1991, for a review). In the color-naming version of the Stroop task, this conflict on incompatible trials arises when the ink color is conveyed by a word that spells out an alternative color, such as when trying to name the ink color green in the presence of the word RED. The resulting increase in RTs and errors to words with incompatible colors and meanings, as compared with those with compatible colors and meanings, is referred to as the Stroop effect. Because the Stroop effect reflects the influence of a word's meaning that is irrelevant to performing the task, the Stroop effect is often taken as evidence that word reading is automatic (Keele, 1972;Posner & Snyder, 1975). Stroop DilutionIf word reading is truly automatic in the traditional sense, it must be involuntary and free from attentional demands. However, the idea that word reading occurs without the need for attention has been called into question by the phenomenon of Stroop dilution (Kahneman & Chajczyk, 1983). In the most common Stroop dilution paradigm, participants are to respond to a target color bar by naming its color. In addition to the target stimulus, two other stimuli are presented concurrently: a distractor and a diluter. The distractor is a color word that may interfere with naming the color of the target, thereby leading to a Stroop effect. The diluter is an additional stimulus that does not interfere with color naming but may reduce the influence of the distractor. For example, when responding to the target bar by naming its color, participants' RTs are longer when the color word distractor and target bar indicate different colors rather than the same color. When a neutral word (e.g., talk) is presented simultaneously with the target and distractor, the Stroop effect is diminished, and Stroop dilution has occurred.Brown, Roos-Gilbert, and Carr (1995) summarized three accounts of Stroop dilution. First, dilution may occur at the level of lexical processing. According to this account, Stroop dilution takes place because of a general capacity limit for word processing. When a color word distractor and neutral word diluter are presented concurrently, both words are processed in parallel. Since lexical processing is a limited resource, the meaning of each individual word is only partially activated. Assuming that there is a relation between the level of word activation and the word's influence on behavior, the effect of the distractor is reduced. Kahneman and Chajczyk (1983) tested this possibility using a neutral word or string of Xs as the diluter. If words are read automatically and dilution is a consequence of the finite resources of lexical processing, then the X diluter should not re...

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Section: Simon Dilutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dilution of compatibility effects in Simon-type tasks depends on categorical similarity between distractors and diluters

Miles

Yamaguchi

Proctor

2009

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

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“…Using displays with crossed rectangles, Wühr and colleagues consistently found that words that were in the relevant object produced larger Stroop effects than did words that were in the irrelevant object or words that were in the background, whereas Stroop effects did not differ in the two latter conditions (Wühr, 2007;Wühr & Waszak, 2003;Wühr & Weltle, 2005). These results suggest that object-based attention amplifies the processing of the relevant object but does not inhibit the processing of the irrelevant object.…”

Section: Apparatus and Stimulimentioning

confidence: 74%

“…The critical manipulation concerned the shape of the irrelevant object. As was the case in the study by Wühr and Waszak (2003), the irrelevant object had the same shape as the relevant object in one session (e.g., Figure 1A). In the other session, the shape of the irrelevant object was different from that of the relevant object (e.g., Figure 1B), as was the case in the study by Wühr and Frings (2008).…”

Section: Universität Des Saarlandes Saarbrücken Germanymentioning

confidence: 89%

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Inhibition is picky: Shape difference is a necessary condition for attentional inhibition of irrelevant objects

Wühr

Frings

2009

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…The same result was obtained when participants had to report the color of the occluded rectangle. Wühr and Waszak (2003) explained these results in terms of an object-based mechanism of selective attention, as suggested by Duncan (1984) and Kahneman (e.g., Kahneman & Henik, 1981;Kahneman & Treisman, 1984). According to this account, preattentive processes segment the visual field into candidate objects (figures) and background, and attention selects among the candidate objects.…”

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confidence: 82%