A Stimulus-Response Account of Stroop and Reverse Stroop Effects

dc.contributor.authorBlais, Chrisen
dc.date.accessioned2007-05-08T13:39:25Z
dc.date.available2007-05-08T13:39:25Z
dc.date.issued2006en
dc.date.submitted2006en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis concerns selective attention in the context of the Stroop task (identify the colour) and Reverse Stroop task (identify the word). When a person is asked to select and identify one dimension of a bidimensional stimulus (e. g. , the word RED printed in green) the typical finding is that the word influences colour identification (i. e. , the Stroop effect) but the colour does not influence word identification (i. e. , no Reverse Stroop effect). A major account of performance in these tasks posits that one dimension interferes with the other only when a translation occurs (e. g. , Roelofs, <i>Psychological Review, 2003</i>; Sugg & McDonald, <i>Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 1994</i>; Virzi & Egeth, <i>Memory & Cognition, 1985</i>). This translation assumption is implicit in virtually all work in the field. The first part of this thesis completely undermines the translation assumption. In a series of four experiments (two unique paradigms), I demonstrate that interference from the colour in a Reverse Stroop task occurs in the absence of a translation. The second part of this thesis contains two additional experiments designed to discriminate between translation effects and response conflict effects. The results of these experiments confirm that a translation was not required because no stimulus conflict effect, the most likely locus of a translation effect, was observed. However, response conflict effects were observed. The third part of this thesis implements a computational model based on the principle that the strength of association (Cohen, Dunbar, & McClelland, <i>Psychological Review, 1990</i>) between a specific stimulus and its response (Logan, </i>Psychological Review, 1988</i>) is important in determining the influence of the irrelevant dimension. This model has no translation mechanism. A final experiment was conducted to test this model; the model accounted for over 98% of the variance in RTs and 92% of the variance in interference and facilitation scores in both the Stroop and Reverse Stroop tasks independent of whether a translation was required.en
dc.formatapplication/pdfen
dc.format.extent1823777 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/2810
dc.language.isoenen
dc.pendingfalseen
dc.publisherUniversity of Waterlooen
dc.rightsCopyright: 2006, Blais, Chris. All rights reserved.en
dc.subjectPsychologyen
dc.subjectstimulus-response compatibilityen
dc.subjectStroop effecten
dc.subjectreverse Stroop effecten
dc.subjectselective attentionen
dc.titleA Stimulus-Response Account of Stroop and Reverse Stroop Effectsen
dc.typeDoctoral Thesisen
uws-etd.degreeDoctor of Philosophyen
uws-etd.degree.departmentPsychologyen
uws.peerReviewStatusUnrevieweden
uws.scholarLevelGraduateen
uws.typeOfResourceTexten

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