Supplemental Material for Anxiety, Emotional Distraction, and Attentional Control in the Stroop Task

Emotion ◽  
2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Emotional Distraction

scholarly journals Anxiety, emotional distraction, and attentional control in the Stroop task.

Emotion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Kalanthroff ◽  
Avishai Henik ◽  
Nazanin Derakshan ◽  
Marius Usher
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Emotional Distraction

scholarly journals Changes of Structural and Functional Attention Control Networks in Subclinical Hypothyroidism

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingjing Yin ◽  
Lei Xie ◽  
DongXue Luo ◽  
Jinzhuang Huang ◽  
Ruiwei Guo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Subclinical Hypothyroidism ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Attention Control ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Control Networks

Objective: This study aimed to explore the structural changes in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and to investigate the altered attentional control networks using functional MRI (fMRI) during the performance of a modified Stroop task with Chinese characters.Methods: High-resolution three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted images and an fMRI scan were taken from 18 patients with SCH and 18 matched control subjects. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Chinese-revised (MoCA-CR) and the Stroop task were used to evaluate the cognitive and attention control of the participants.Results: Compared to controls, the VBM results showed decreased gray matter volumes (GMVs) in bilateral prefrontal cortices (PFCs, including middle, medial, and inferior frontal gyri), cingulate gyrus, precuneus, left middle temporal gyrus, and insula in patients with SCH. The fMRI results showed a distributed network of brain regions in both groups, consisting of PFCs (including superior and middle and inferior frontal cortices), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus, as well as the insula and caudate nucleus. Compared to controls, the SCH group had lower activation of the above brain areas, especially during the color-naming task. In addition, the normalized GMV (nGMV) was negatively correlated with thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level (r = −0.722, p < 0.001).Conclusion: Results indicate that patients with SCH exhibit reduced GMVs, altered BOLD signals, and activation in regions associated with attention control, which further suggest that patients with SCH may have attentional control deficiency, and the weakened PFC–ACC–precuneus brain network might be one of the neural mechanisms. Negative correlations between nGMV and TSH suggest that TSH elevation may induce abnormalities in the cortex.

An Electrophysiological Investigation of Preparatory Attentional Control in a Spatial Stroop Task

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 1004-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily R. Stern ◽  
Jennifer A. Mangels
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Verbal Stimulus ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Manual Response ◽  
Preparatory Attention ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Spatial Stroop

Top-down attentional control is required when subjects must attend to one of multiple conflicting stimulus features, such as in the Stroop task. Performance may be improved when such control is implemented in advance of stimulus presentation, yet few studies have examined this issue. Our investigation employed a spatial Stroop task with a manual response, allowing us to focus on the effects of preparatory attention on verbal processing when it is the less automatic attribute. A letter cue (P or W) presented for 2200 msec instructed subjects to respond on the basis of the position or meaning of a word (up, down, left, right) placed in an incongruent position relative to center. Event-related potentials recorded during pre- and poststimulus periods were analyzed as a function of reaction time to the target stimulus (fast vs. slow) in order to differentiate neural activity associated with more or less successful implementation of control. During the prestimulus period, fast responses to subsequent targets were associated with enhanced slow-wave activity over right frontal and bilateral central-parietal regions. During the poststimulus period, fast word trials were uniquely associated with an enhanced inferior temporal negativity (ITN) from 200 to 600 msec. More importantly, a correlation between frontal prestimulus activity and the poststimulus ITN suggested that frontal preparatory activity played a role in facilitating conceptual processing of the verbal stimulus when it arrived, providing an important link between preparatory attention and mechanisms that improve performance in the face of conflict.

scholarly journals Finding an interaction between Stroop congruency and flanker congruency requires a large congruency effect: A within-trial combination of conflict tasks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alodie Rey-Mermet
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Congruency Effect ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Vocal Responses

Responding to a conflict is assumed to trigger attentional-control processes, that is, processes that enable us to activate goal-relevant information and to inhibit irrelevant information. Typically, conflict is induced in tasks, such as the Stroop task (which requires identifying the color of color words) or the flanker task (which requires identifying a central character among flankers). Combining the conflicts within the same trial has been found to result in an interaction in reaction times (RTs), suggesting a generalization of attentional control. However, this interaction was observed when the congruency effect was substantial, that is, when the RT difference between incongruent trials (e.g., the word “green” printed in red for the Stroop task) and congruent trials (e.g., the word “red” printed in red) was large. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether a large congruency effect is the necessary condition for observing the interaction. To this end, Stroop and flanker tasks were combined, and participants were asked to respond to the color of central letter/word while ignoring the flanking letters/words. The magnitude of the congruency effect was increased: (a) by testing older adults (Exp. 1), (b) by manipulating the proportion of trials in which participants were asked to respond to the word meaning (Exp. 2), and (c) by using vocal responses (Exp. 3). The results showed an interaction when the Stroop congruency effect was large. Therefore, such interactions can be used to validate or invalidate theoretical explanations only when the precondition – a large congruency effect – is fulfilled.

scholarly journals Acute Serotonin and Dopamine Depletion Improves Attentional Control: Findings from the Stroop Task

2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 1600-1610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsty E Scholes ◽  
Ben J Harrison ◽  
Barry V O'Neill ◽  
Sumie Leung ◽  
Rodney J Croft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Dopamine Depletion

scholarly journals Proactive control of emotional distraction: Evidence from alpha suppression

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Murphy ◽  
Christel Devue ◽  
Paul Michael Corballis ◽  
Gina M. Grimshaw
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Proactive Control ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Frequency Condition ◽  
Stimulus Period ◽  
Attentional Control Settings ◽  
Sustained Use ◽  
Emotional Distraction

Biased attention towards emotional stimuli is adaptive, as it facilitates responses to important threats and rewards. An unfortunate consequence is that emotional stimuli can become potent distractors when they are irrelevant to current goals. How can this distraction be overcome despite the bias to attend to emotional stimuli? Recent studies show that distraction by irrelevant flankers is reduced when distractor frequency is high, even if they are emotional. A parsimonious explanation is that the expectation of frequent distractors promotes the use of proactive control, whereby attentional control settings can be altered to minimise distraction before it occurs. It is difficult, however, to infer proactive control on the basis of behavioural data alone. We therefore measured neural indices of proactive control while participants performed a target-detection task in which irrelevant peripheral distractors (either emotional or neutral) could appear either frequently (on 75% of trials) or rarely (on 25% of trials). We measured alpha power during the pre-stimulus period to assess proactive control; and during the post-stimulus period to determine the consequences of control for subsequent processing. Pre-stimulus alpha power was tonically suppressed in the high, compared to low, distractor-frequency condition, regardless of expected valence, indicating sustained use of proactive control. In contrast, there was less post-stimulus alpha suppression in the high frequency condition, suggesting that proactive control reduced the need for post-stimulus adjustments. Our findings indicate that a sustained proactive control strategy accounts for the reduction in both emotional and non-emotional distraction when distractors are expected to appear frequently.

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