The nature of cross-modal color-word interference effects

Abstract

Cowan and Barron (1987) and Cowan (1989b) reported that color-naming performance was slowed by spoken color names drawn from the same set but presented in an order unrelated to the printed colors. Although Miles, Madden, and Jones (1989) and were unable to replicate this cross-modal effect, it is replicated here in two experiments with much better experimental control than before. However, the effect is shown to depend upon the relative timing of the color and word in a way that conflicts with the theoretical account that Cowan and Barron offered. While Cowan and Barron suggested that an irrelevant color word would contaminate the response set if this word occupied short-term memory when the color was about to be named, it appears that interference actually occurs only if the memory representation was formed very recently and had not been inhibited. Further implications for processing are discussed. Stroop's (1935) seminal research showed that the task of naming ink colors was slowed if each color of ink formed a color word that did not match the correct response. Most of the numerous studies further exploring that effect (reviewed recently by MacLeod, 1991MacLeod, , 1992 have provided conflicting cues within the visual modality (as Stroop did) or in a few cases within the auditory modality (Green & Barber, 1981;McClain, 1983). However, Cowan and Barron (1987) found that the task of naming visually presented colors was slowed by the concurrent presentation of an audiotape containing a random sequence of spoken color words drawn from the same set as the correct responses. Audiotapes with noncolor words had no such effect on color naming. This cross-modal effect is theoretically important because it demonstrates that subjects cannot voluntarily restrict lexical processing to the visual modality. Cowan and Barron used these and concomitant results (e.g., the additivity of visual and cross-modal interference) to argue for "a description of processing in which multiple verbal items enter a prespeech buffer and a selection mechanism examines buffer items in parallel." However, a controversy has followed the initial report.Miles, Madden, and Jones (1989) failed to replicate the cross-modal effects reported by Cowan and Barron (1987), but Cowan (1989b) pointed out ways in which the method of the original study had not been reproduced faithfully. briefly stated that they reproduced the method more faithfully and still failed to find the cross-modal interference, but Cowan (1989a) reported a replication with a similar method. Thus, reports of the success of this procedure have been mixed.It seems noteworthy that the original study and the successful and failed replications all suffered from some important methodological limitations. Rather than being obtained for each visually presented color individually, reaction times were obtained for pages each of 100 items. Also, because the spoken channel was not synchronized with the visual stimulus, the timing of audiovisual presentation was variable. A side effect of this pres...

Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: Individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials

“…Previous evidence from the cross-modal Stroop paradigm, in which participants are asked to name a colored square as quickly as possible while ignoring spoken, incongruent color words (Cowan & Barron, 1987;Elliott, Cowan, & Valle-Inclán, 1998), supports the conjecture that attention is helpful to overcome at least some sorts of ISEs. When examined developmentally, the magnitude of the disruption in the cross-modal Stroop effect was shown to decrease with age (Hanauer & Brooks, 2003), which the authors interpreted in terms of developmental improvements in selective attention.…”

Distraction of Mental Arithmetic by Background Speech

“…A similar example of this disruption produced by irrelevant semantic material competing for action has RUNNING HEAD: DISTRACTION OF ARITHMETIC BY BACKGROUND SPEECH 7 been observed in the context of the Stroop effect. To read the printed word is a habitual response, but the response is inappropriate in the context of naming the color in which the color-word is presented, and produces interference by competing for verbal output (Elliott, Cowan, & Valle-Inclan, 1998). Deterioration in focal task performance [reduced veridical recall (Marsh et al, 2015) or slowed color-naming (Elliott et al, 1998)] may arise as a side effect of the executive mechanisms that prevent irrelevant responses from commandeering the control of action.…”

Developmental change in the cross-modal Stroop effect

“…This claim, however, became controversial, since and Miles, Madden, and Jones (1989) failed to replicate Cowan and Barron. Cowan (1989), E. M. Elliott et al (1998), and E. M. Elliott and Cowan (2001) claimed that the failed replications were due to methodological errors and again demonstrated the cross-modal Stroop effect.…”

“…M. Elliott, Cowan, and Valle-Inclan (1998) reported a cross-modal Stroop-like interference effect in adults when an auditory distractor (a color or noncolor word) occurred simultaneously with a color patch to be named. Response times were slower with color as opposed to noncolor distractors.…”

“…For example, in Barber (1981, 1983), significant interference occurred in the auditory modality when participants were instructed to say "girl" if the speaker was male and "boy" if the speaker was female. Cowan and colleagues (Cowan, 1989;Cowan & Barron, 1987; E. M. Elliott, Cowan, & Valle-Inclan, 1998) designed a crossmodal Stroop analogue with colors presented in the visual modality and words presented over headphones. They found significantly slower color-naming latencies when colors were paired with color word distractors (e.g., seeing purple and hearing yellow), as compared with noncolor words (e.g., seeing purple and hearing single).…”