Priming and interference effects can be dissociated in the Stroop task: New evidence in favor of the automaticity of word recognition

Abstract

Recently, Besner, Stolz, and Boutilier (1997)showed that by coloring a single letter instead of the whole word, Stroop interference is reduced or even eliminated, a result that is at odds with the widely accepted assumption that word recognition is automatic. In a replication of the Besner et al. study, we computed priming effects in addition to the standard Stroop interference. Interference results replicated those of Besner et al. Also, negative priming in the all-letter-coloredcondition and positive priming in the singleletter-colored condition were obtained. Priming findings demonstrate that word processing can take place in the absence of interference effects. These results support the view of automatic processing of words in the Stroop task and call for priming as a more appropriate measure of word processing than interference.

Intentional and Reactive Inhibition During Spoken-Word Stroop Task Performance in People With Aphasia

“…Other reports of facilitation during negative priming give accounts of stimuli that have been degraded (Kane, May, Hasher, Rahhal, & Stoltzfus, 1997), an absence of interference in the probe trial (Catena et al, 2002), or primes that consist of a "low level perceptual task" (e.g., letter search in target word; Marí-Beffa et al, 2000). None of these issues are consistent with the stimuli or methods involved in the present study and its findings on positive priming.…”

“…According to Cohen et al (1990), even processing considered more automatic, such as that required for the congruent condition, may become slower depending on the task context. Some have described these contextual factors as a "mental set," or how the individual may differently apply suppression to the task given its context (Catena, Fuentes, & Tudela, 2002;Marí-Beffa, Fuentes, Catena, & Houghton, 2000). Torres-Quesada, Fúnes, and Lupiáñez (2013) called this phenomenon the proportion congruent effect and described how the proportion of congruent and incongruent trial types yields adaptations in cognitive control.…”

Processing of distractors inside and outside the attentional focus in a priming procedure

“…Interference procedures, not priming, have been the most common way to measure the level of processing reached by nonattended stimuli. However, there is actually a wide agreement that priming procedure may provide a more sensitive measure of processing than interference (Catena, Fuentes, & Tudela, 2002;Driver & Tipper, 1989;Fox, 1995). Therefore one important difference between the approach here and that of previous studies is the greater sensitivity of our measure to the processing reached by visual stimuli.…”

Single-letter coloring and spatial cuing do not eliminate or reduce a semantic contribution to the Stroop effect

“…In particular, it is conceivable that it reduces the activation of articulatory codes (Neely & Kahan, 2001) or helps to separate the products resulting from the processing of the color and word dimensions (Manwell et al, 2004). Another possibility is that narrowing attention through single-letter coloring/cuing permits a better adaptation to the task-specific response criteria, since it enables participants to exert additional control over what is done with the various items of information that are automatically computed (see, e.g., Catena, Fuentes, & Tudela, 2002, for demonstrations of this possibility). These different possibilities (which point in very different directions) indicate that future studies will require a clear conceptual and operational definition of nonsemantic, task-relevant response competition.…”