The effects of stress on Stroop color-word performance

Abstract

Based on the Hullian proposition that habit and drive combine, the effects of stress on the Stroop Color-Word Test were investigated in 48 college students, under the expectation that stress lVould effect performance differentially, depending upon the nature of the incongruous stimuli. Significant main effects, stress and competition, as well as their interaction, were found.stroop (1935), observing that it takes more time to name colors than to read color llames (Brown, 1915;Lund, 1927;Ligon, 1932), proposed a technique for investigating the interfering effect of the presence of conflicting word stimuli upon naming colors (e.g., the word "blue" is printed on the color red, the task being to name the color of the ink and ignore the word). The series of tasks has proved discriminative in studies attempting to elaborate cognitive styles (Broverman & Lazarus, 1958;Broverman, 1960), in studies comparing groups which are ordered developmentally (Comalli, Wapner, & Werner, 1962;Schiller, 1966), and in Ss under primitivizing drugs vs placebo conditions (Wapner & Krus, 1960).The present study sought to vary the strength of the incorrect competing response relative to the correct response by varying the relationship between color and text. Word meanings that implicate the colors should be more interfering than simply meaningful but unrelated words; words referring directly to color should be more interfering than connotatively related words; greatest of all should be the interference of words that are themselves the names of the printed color names (Klein, 1964). Stress was applied in the form of introducing time pressures into the task. In the stress condition, the Shad 1 sec to respond, while in the nonstress condition, he had 2 sec. If, on the basis of Hull's (1943) original assumption that all momentarily operative motivational factors or drives (D) combine indiscriminately with all existing habitual tendencies (H) that are aroused by the stimulus situation to produce response strength (E), the stimulus situation gives rise to more than one response; the effects of increased drive, according to this assumption, are expected to depend on the strength of the to-be-Iearned (correct) response relative to other competing (incorrect) responses. Thus, where the correct response (naming the color) has a lower habit strength than the competing response (reading the color word), high drive (stress) would be predicted to be detrimental to performance.Psychon. Sci., 1967. Vol. 9 (8) Method SIDNEY H. HOCHMAN QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNYFour different lists of words were used. Each word was printed either in red, blue, or green. In List I, the words were the same as the color names, but presented in incongruent combinations of color and word ("blue" printed in red); in List 2 they were different words of the same response class (tan, gray, blaCk); in List 3, they were words that are not themselves color names but implicate the colors in their meaning (sky, fire, grass) and were presented in incongruent combinations with the colors; and in...

The Stroop Test in Evaluating Performance Effects of Navy Diving Tasks. 1. Stimulus Exposure Duration Effects

“…The interaction, however, was not significant (F < 1.00). The finding that performance was inferior with a briefer exposure duration is congruent with Hochman's (1967Hochman's ( , 1969 data. These results are consistent with a response competition interpretation of Stroop performance, as Ss in the short duration condition presumably have less opportunity to inhibit the dominant response tendency (i.e., reading the word).…”

“…This experiment constitutes a partial replication of two recent studies (Hochman, 1967(Hochman, , 1969 which show that Ss perform significantly better with longer exposure times. Furthermore, this investigation provided an opportunity to evaluate the effects of repeated practice with the same set of items on color-word interference.…”

The effect of arousal on Stroop color-word task performance

“…While the results partially support Hochman's (1967Hochman's ( , 1969) interpretation of the Stroop task as an index of arousal, both the absence of facilitation of performance under low response competition and the fact that elements of the task served as both a source of stress or arousal and of response competition render the implications of these studies somewhat ambiguous.…”

“…Hochman (1967Hochman ( , 1969 found that high stress resulted in more verbal errors in the high response competition version but failed to fmd that high stress resulted in fewer errors under low response competition relative to performance in the low stress conditions. While the results partially support Hochman's (1967Hochman's ( , 1969) interpretation of the Stroop task as an index of arousal, both the absence of facilitation of performance under low response competition and the fact that elements of the task served as both a source of stress or arousal and of response competition render the implications of these studies somewhat ambiguous.However, the Stroop color-word task is a potentially convenient and useful performance index of arousal or drive. For example, the instructions and procedure employed in the present research took only a few minutes (and closely followed that of Hochman, 1967Hochman, , 1969.…”

“…For example, the instructions and procedure employed in the present research took only a few minutes (and closely followed that of Hochman, 1967Hochman, , 1969. A satifactory demonstration of Hochman's point that Stroop task performance may index arousal or drive level could be achieved by showing that performance varied as a function of arousal unrelated to the task (and thus Stroop task performance would be noninstrumental to reduction of arousal) such that subjects under high arousal made a larger number of errors under the high response competition and fewer errors under the low response competition versions of the task.…”