Increased attention to the irrelevant dimension increases interference in a spatial Stroop task.

In a spatial Stroop task, it is argued that interference (ITF) results because selective attention is only partially successful. If so, increasing attention to the word should increase ITF. Three experiments, with 88 undergraduates, used the position words above, below, left, and right in incompatible positions to the left, right, or below a fixation point. Exp 1 showed increased ITF with position naming when Ss must be prepared to attend to either the word or its position. Exp 2 required Ss to first name the position of the word and then recall which word had been presented. This resulted in increased ITF with position naming when the word was followed at a short stimulus onset asynchrony by a pattern mask. Exp 3 employed both word reading and position naming and showed that a large reverse Stroop effect occurred with both vocal and manual responses when Ss were prepared to attend to either dimension of the stimulus. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning of color-word associations using a Stroop paradigm.

Asked whether implicit learning occurs for novel nonverbal associations by presenting Ss with color names printed in incongruent colors; Ss were asked to name the color in which the word was printed. In Exp 1, each of 7 color words were associated with the same incongruent color across 6 blocks of trials, and then the color–word associations were abruptly changed. Both control Ss and patients with amnesia reduced their color-naming times across the 1st 6 trial blocks, and naming times increased when the color–word associations were changed. In Exp 2, similar results were obtained when neutral words were associated with colors. In Exp 3, it was found that naming times were not disrupted when an irrelevant dimension (typecase) was changed. Finally, in Exp 4, it was found that the effect persisted across a 5-min delay. These studies provide evidence that implicit learning occurs for nonverbal associations and is independent of the brain structures damaged in amnesia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stroop process dissociations: The relationship between facilitation and interference.

L. L. Jacoby's (see record 1992-07943-001) "process dissociation procedure" was used to quantitatively estimate the contributions of color-naming and word-reading processes to responding on the Stroop task. Results show that color naming and word reading can operate independently to determine responses. Degrading stimulus colors eliminated the typical asymmetry between Stroop facilitation and interference, as predicted by the equations (Exps 1 and 2). Degrading stimulus colors reduced the estimated contribution of color naming to responding but had no effect on the estimated contribution of word reading (Exp 2). In contrast, increasing the proportion of incongruent items reduced the estimated contribution of word reading but had no effect on the estimated contribution of color naming (Exps 3 and 4). Results indicate that the facilitating and interfering effects of automatic processes cannot be accurately measured in terms of differences from baseline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Actions speak no louder than words: Symmetrical cross-modal interference effects in the processing of verbal and gestural information.

Five experiments are reported that investigate the distribution of selective attention to verbal and nonverbal components of an utterance when conflicting information exists in these channels. A Stroop-type interference paradigm is adopted in which attributes from the verbal and nonverbal dimensions are placed into conflict. Static directional (deictic) gestures and corresponding spoken and written words show symmetrical interference (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), as do directional arrows and spoken words (Experiment 4). This symmetry is maintained when the task is switched from a manual keypress to a verbal naming response (Experiment 5), suggesting the mutual influence of the 2 dimensions is independent of spatial stimulus-response compatibility. It is concluded that the results are consistent with a model of interference in which information from pointing gestures and speech is integrated prior to the response selection stage of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivation and attention: Incongruent effects of feedback on the processing of valence.

Four experiments investigated the relation between outcome-related motivational states and processes of automatic attention allocation. Experiments 1-3 analyzed influences of feedback on evaluative decisions. Words of opposite valence to the feedback were processed faster, indicating that it is easier to allocate attention to the valence of an affectively incongruent word. Experiment 4 replicated the incongruency effect with interference effects of word valence in a grammatical-categorization task, indicating that the effect reflects automatic attentional capture. In all experiments, incongruent effects of feedback emerged only in a situation involving an attentional shift between words that differed in valence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive and linguistic foundations of early reading development: A Norwegian latent variable longitudinal study.

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 228 Norwegian children beginning some 12 months before formal reading instruction began. The relationships between a range of cognitive and linguistic skills (letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, visual–verbal paired-associate learning, rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term memory, and verbal and nonverbal ability) were investigated and related to later measures of word recognition in reading. Letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, and RAN were independent longitudinal predictors of early reading (word recognition) skills in the regular Norwegian orthography. Early reading skills initially appeared well described as a unitary construct that then showed rapid differentiation into correlated subskills (word decoding, orthographic choice, text reading, and nonword reading) that showed very high levels of longitudinal stability. The results are related to current ideas about the cognitive foundations of early reading skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Porcine carotid vascular effects of eletriptan (UK-116,044): a new 5-HT1B/1D receptor agonist with anti-migraine activity

Two experiments showed that having two incongruent words present on a single Stroop trial (e.g., both red and green in blue, say "blue") did not alter interference relative to having only one incongruent word. This was true whether the two incongruent words were presented successively at several stimulus onset asynchronies (Experiment 1) or simultaneously in adjacent positions (Experiment 2). We argue that the first word captures attention and "locks out" others, preventing additional interference.     

The /O/ in OVER is different from the /O/ in OTTER: Phonological effects in children with and without dyslexia.

First-letter naming was used to investigate the role of phonology in printed word perception in children with and without dyslexia. In 2 experiments, all children showed faster first-letter-naming times in a congruent condition than in an incongruent condition, which suggests that phonology is a fundamental constraint in the printed word perception of readers of all levels and all skills. An explanation in terms of a recurrent network put forward by G. C. Van Orden and S. D. Goldinger (1996) is discussed to account for the apparent paradox in the reading behavior of readers with dyslexia, that is, that in first-letter naming, dyslexic readers appear to show phonological congruity effects, whereas in pseudoword reading, their phonological knowledge appears to be deficient or absent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training and Stroop-like interference: Evidence for a continuum of automaticity.

Three experiments varied the extent of practice in an analog of the Stroop color-word task. The experiments involved 4 phases: baseline naming of 4 familiar colors; training in consistently naming 4 novel shapes by using the names of the same 4 colors; naming the colors when they appeared in the form of the shapes; and naming the shapes when they appeared in color. In Exp 1, with up to 2 hr of training in shape naming, colors were named much faster than shapes. Interference was observed only in Phase 4. In Exp 2 (5 hr of training) shape naming sped up, but was still slower than color naming. There was symmetrical interference in Phases 3 and 4 that persisted 3 mo without further training. Exp 3 extended practice to 20 hr, by which time shape and color naming were equally rapid. After 20 hr, interference appeared only in Phase 3, reversing the original asymmetry. The overall pattern is inconsistent with a simple speed of processing account of interference. Implications of the alternative idea of a continuum of automaticity—a direct consequence of training—are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imageability effects in word naming: An individual differences analysis.

The present research was designed to extend research by Strain et al (1995) who found that imageability facilitates naming of low-frequency irregular words. The authors hypothesized that the impact of imageability on naming performance will vary with phonological reading ability. For participants who score high in phonological reading ability, the effect of imageability should be seen primarily on naming of low-frequency exception words where the orthography-to-phonology mappings are not strong. For participants who score low in phonological reading ability, the mapping of orthography onto phonology is presumably inefficient for all types of low-frequency words. Accordingly, for these participants, it was predicted that imageability would affect naming of both exception and regular words. 90 college students served as Ss. Exp 1 shows that the impact of imageability on word naming varies with phonological coding skill. In Exp 2, the effect of imageability on naming low-frequency irregular words was shown to occur across an extended set of items. Together, the present findings support the notion that semantics may play a role in phonological coding when the mappings between orthography and phonology are weak. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic interference and orthographic facilitation in definition naming.

Semantic interference and orthographic facilitation are common findings in Stroop-like color and picture-naming tasks. The authors investigated whether these context effects are also obtained when, instead of colors or pictures, definitions are used as target stimuli. In Exp 1, both effects were obtained when definitions of colors such as "the color of tomatoes?" had to be named. This finding was replicated in Exp 2, in which the definitions were taken from a larger set of semantic categories. The remaining 4 experiments showed that the semantic interference effect cannot be attributed to a strategic match or nonmatch decision (Exp 3) and does not show up when the distractor word precedes the definition (Exps 4, 5, and 6). The findings are discussed in relation to accounts of context effects in naming tasks and in relation to word-retrieval problems in the tip-of-the-tongue state. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anaphoric inference during reading.

Examined whether antecedents are reactivated by anaphor, in 3 experiments with a total of 144 undergraduates, using additional control sentences and an alternative response time measure. Ss read a series of texts each containing a target item. Immediately after the last line of each text, the item was probed using a recognition task in Exp I and a naming task in Exp II. Ss were faster to respond to the item when the last line contained an anaphoric reference to it than when the last line referred to a different item from the text. Additional control conditions ensured that the effect was not due to semantic priming and that the probed item was not in working memory when the last line was encountered. Findings in Exp III, which compared reading and naming times when the last sentence continued the established topic with times when the last sentence changed the topic, suggest that previous evidence for reinstatement reflected interference from a change of topic in the last line rather than facilitation due to reinstatement of the probed item. It is suggested that the paradigm developed by G. McKoon and R. Ratcliff (see record 1981-24997-001) requires careful control of variables. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overlooking the incongruent: Categorization biases in the identification of political statements.

To explore factors affecting memory for statements expounding political positions, 2 experiments examined source attribution for 1-sentence political statements embedded in either congruent or incongruent contexts. In Exp I, 28 female undergraduates who were active in a campus feminist group and 26 who were not read essays by 4 writers of differing overall viewpoints on feminism; in Exp II, 32 undergraduates who were active in the anti-nuclear-power movement and 32 who were not read similar essays about nuclear power. Analysis revealed a pronounced "congruency bias"—both superior recognition memory and more accurate attribution to source for statements embodying a position consistent with the global position of the source. Among incongruent statements, however, there was significantly better source memory for statements that represented extreme, rather than moderate, departures from the overall position of the writer, an effect attributable in part to the greater salience of extremely incongruent items. There was also significantly better source attribution for statements made by writers whose global positions were relatively congenial to Ss and for statements embodying either minority positions or extreme versions of majority views. These effects were not moderated by either intensity of Ss' attitudes or instructions that specifically requested Ss to remember incongruent items. An extension of these studies that adjusted for response bias by transforming the source attribution dependent variable is appended. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modulation of word-reading processes in task switching.

The authors examined modulation of the simple act of word naming induced by the conflict arising when that task competes with color naming in a task-switching paradigm. Subjects alternated between naming a word printed in black and naming the color of a stimulus in 2 conditions. In the incongruent condition, the colored stimulus was an irrelevant word generating conflict, and in the neutral condition, color was carried by a row of asterisks. Subjects took substantially longer to name a word printed in black in the incongruent condition, implying a form of suppression. This modulation of the word-naming response was adaptive in that it led to more efficient color naming. The modulation effect was replicated using phoneme detection instead of word naming but not with lexical decision or visual comparison, implicating a phonological encoding process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comprehension of idiomatic expressions: Effects of predictability and literality.

Examined the influence of predictability on idiom comprehension in 3 cross-modal priming experiments with 213 university students. In Exp 1, Ss heard neutral sentences that contained high- and low-predictable idioms and made lexical decisions to idiom-related or control visual targets presented at the idiom offset. Both high- and low-predictable idioms showed priming of the idiom-related meaning. Exp 2 showed more priming for high-predictable idioms than for low-predictable idioms when the visual target was presented prior to idiom offset (penultimate position). In Exp 3 the activation of the literal meaning of the idiom-final word at idiom offset was examined as a function of predictability and literality (i.e., the degree to which an idiom has a potential literal interpretation). Activation of the literal meaning was found for all idiom types except high-predictable-nonliteral idioms. Results are discussed with respect to different models of idiom comprehension, with a special emphasis on the configuration model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming effects in semantic classification tasks.

Six experiments were conducted on priming in semantic classification tasks that allow free play between perceptual and semantic processes. Priming was greatest when words were repeated on the same semantic task at study and test but was absent when repeated words were classified on different semantic tasks (size and man-made; Exp 1). Thus, merely repeating perceptual information is not sufficient to produce priming. Priming was obtained, however, when items on the same semantic task were repeated in different formats (words and pictures; Exp 2). Consistent with stage models of single-word reading, priming was obtained when a semantic classification task was followed by a word form task (i.e., lexical classification or naming) but not when it was preceded by the word form task (Exps 3 and 4). Priming was also found across lexical tasks that both involve the word form (Exp 5) and across classification tasks that refer to the same semantic domain (overall size and relative dimensions; Exp 6). Results suggest that priming is determined by the overlap in the component processes of the study and test tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-of-Acquisition Effects in Word and Picture Identification.

Words and pictures with earlier learned labels are processed faster than words and pictures with later learned labels. This age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect has been extensively investigated in many different types of tasks. This article provides a review of these studies including picture naming, word naming, speeded word naming, word pronunciation durations, lexical decisions, eye fixation times, face recognition, and episodic memory tasks. The measurement and validity of AoA ratings is discussed, along with statistical techniques used for exploring AoA's influence. Finally, theories of AoA are outlined, and evidence for and against the various theories is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pictures in sentences: Understanding without words.

In 5 experiments with a total of 120 Ss of college age, sentences were presented in which a pictured object replaced a word (rebus sentences). Sentences were shown using rapid serial visual presentation at a rate of 10 or 12 words/second. With one set of materials (Exp I and II), Ss took longer to judge the plausibility of rebus sentences than all-word sentences, although the accuracy of judgment and of recall were similar for the 2 formats. With 2 new sets of materials (Exps III and V), rebus and all-word sentences were virtually equivalent except in 1 circumstance: when a picture replaced the noun in a familiar phrase such as seedless grapes. In contrast, when the task required overt naming of the rebus picture in a sentence context, latency to name the picture was markedly longer than to name the corresponding word, and the appropriateness of the sentence context affected picture naming but not word naming (Exp IV). It is concluded that the results fail to support theories that place word meanings in a specialized lexical entry. Instead, the results suggest that the lexical representation of a noun or familiar noun phrase provides a pointer to a nonlinguistic conceptual system, and it is in that system that the meaning of a sentence is constructed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading skill: Some adult comparisons.

Three groups of college readers were compared on several information-processing and language comprehension tasks that tap the cognitive components of reading. The groups were skilled readers with high verbal and nonverbal abilities, low-skilled readers with a disparity between verbal and nonverbal abilities, and low-skilled readers who were low in both verbal and nonverbal ability. Results confirm the importance of word processing and general language comprehension in distinguishing skilled from less skilled readers. Results also support the view that reading ability is best described as a continuous function and provide evidence of the reemergence of lower level processing skills in adults as a function of text difficulty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigation of functional working memory in the reading span test.

Two issues were investigated in 2 experiments: (1) the validity of a reading span test that combined a knowledge verification task with a secondary task of word memorization and (2) the hypothesis that word recall reflects the amount of working memory that is functional in reading. In Exp 1, the validity and reliability of the reading span measure were determined. In Exp 2, it was reasoned that if word recall reflected functional working memory in reading, then 2 results should be observed. The 1st predicted result was that prior exposure to sentences used in the reading span test would release working memory resources and improve word recall. The 2nd was that word recall, though correlated with general working memory and verbal knowledge measures, would add to these scores in predicting comprehension. Both sets of results were obtained, supporting the hypothesis that the reading span test measures functional working memory in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)