The color-word Stroop effect driven by working memory maintenance

Zhang

et al. 2022

Self Cite

The working memory Stroop task is to name the color of a rectangular patch with keypress while holding a color word in working memory. Previous studies using this variant of the Stroop task have shown that congruency between the color patch and the color word significantly affects both color naming and working memory, with the worsening of task performance when the color patch is semantically incongruent rather than congruent with the color word. However, it remains unclear with regard to cognitive mechanisms underlying such congruency effects in the working memory Stroop task. By including a control condition among the congruent and incongruent conditions in a working memory Stroop task, the present study showed that nearly all of the working memory Stroop effect can be facilitation, and that interference, if present, is markedly smaller than facilitation in this form of the Stroop effect. There was also a critical contrast between the working memory and classic Stroop effects in terms of facilitation and interference, with larger facilitation and smaller interference in the working memory Stroop effect than in the classic Stroop effect. Moreover, working memory for a color word can be either facilitated or interfered with by the perceptual judgment (color naming) of an interposed color patch during the retention interval, depending on whether the color patch is semantically congruent or incongruent with the color word. Together, these results suggest that both facilitation and interference mechanisms can contribute to the overall congruency effects in the working memory Stroop task.

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting congruency effects in the working memory Stroop task

Zhang

et al. 2022

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“…A key characteristic of the present experimental design is that it allows us to distinguish between passive priming effects and working memory effects in a single task paradigm, while controlling for depth of stimulus encoding and cognitive control load across different conditions (cf. Pan, Han, & Zuo, 2019;Pan, Zhang, & Zuo, 2019). If priming a stimulus representation facilitates subsequent target discrimination, then we should expect that target discrimination would benefit when the stimulus containing a Landolt target matched the uncued sample compared to when it matched neither sample.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual working memory enhances target discrimination accuracy with single-item displays

Zhang

2020

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The maintenance of information in visual working memory has been shown to bias the concurrent processing in favor of matching visual input. The present study aimed to examine whether this bias can act at an early stage of processing to enhance target feature perception in single-item displays. Participants were sequentially presented with two distinct colored stimuli as memory samples and a retro-cue indicating which of the two samples should be maintained for subsequent memory test. During the retention interval, they had to discriminate the gap orientation of a Landolt target presented through a single visual stimulus that could match one or neither of the two samples. Across two experiments, we consistently found that discrimination performance was more accurate when the Landolt target was situated within a stimulus that matched the sample being retained in visual working memory, as compared with when the target was not. This effect cannot be attributed to the mechanism of passive priming, because we failed to observe priming effects when the stimulus containing the target matched the sample that was retrocued to be irrelevant to the working memory task, as compared to when the stimulus matched neither sample. Given the fact that target stimuli were presented in single-item displays wherein external noise was precluded, the present findings demonstrate that the working memory bias of visual attention operating in the absence of stimulus competition facilitates early perceptual processing at the attended location via signal enhancement.

“…In other words, the internal maintenance of the first number's relevant and irrelevant magnitudes in working memory per se would not reduce the size congruity effect in a numerical Stroop task, as compared to when such magnitudes are externally perceived without working memory processing (i.e., in the simultaneous presentation mode). This claim is grounded on previous research indicating that the magnitude of the Stroop effect driven by working memory maintenance is comparable to that of the classic Stroop effect (e.g., Chen et al, 2017;Kiyonaga & Egner, 2014;Pan et al, 2019). According to such studies, it would have predicted that the size congruity effect in a numerical Stroop task should be of equivalent magnitude for the sequential presentation mode (i.e., the working memory numerical Stroop task) and the simultaneous presentation mode (i.e., the classic numerical Stroop task).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Spatial attention shifts contribute to the size congruity effect

Wang

2021

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The size congruity effect in a numerical Stroop task shows that magnitude judgments of two numbers are faster and more accurate when the numerically larger number also appears in a physically larger size, indicating the interaction between numerical and physical magnitudes. It has recently been suggested that spatial shifts of attention between the two numbers may contribute to the size congruity effect. However, a complete line of evidence for the attentional attribution to the size congruity effect remains to be established. Therefore, the present study aimed to provide further demonstrations for the idea that spatial shifts of attention contribute to the size congruity effect during magnitude judgments regarding either the numerical or physical dimension of two numbers. Participants were sequentially or simultaneously presented with a pair of single-digit Arabic numbers whose numerical and physical magnitudes varied independently. They were instructed to perform a magnitude judgment regarding the numerical value or physical size of the paired numbers. Across three experiments, we consistently found that the size congruity effect was reduced or eliminated when number pairs were presented sequentially compared to when they were presented simultaneously. Because in the sequential presentation mode the paired numbers were successively presented at central fixation and therefore spatial attention shifts should be completely precluded by the central presentation of number stimuli, the present findings support the notion that spatial shifts of attention between numbers in the simultaneous presentation mode play an important role in generating the size congruity effect for both numerical and physical tasks.