Inhibitory Process of Collaborative Inhibition: Assessment Using an Emotional Stroop Task

This study investigated the inhibitory process of collaborative inhibition. An emotional Stroop task was manipulated three times after a group-recall task across three experiments. The results showed that, when participants performed an emotional Stroop task immediately after a group-recall task (Experiment 1) or between two subsequent individual-recall tasks after a group-recall task (Experiment 3), they were able to discriminate color information relating to studied but nonrecalled emotional stimuli more rapidly in the collaborative-recall condition than in the nominal-recall condition. This indicated that participants experienced a stronger inhibition effect in the former condition. However, when the emotional Stroop task was performed after the final individual-recall task (Experiment 2), there were no differences in discrimination between the conditions. These results suggest that the inhibition effect occurs immediately after the group-recall phase and lasts until the final individual-recall task is completed (4 minutes or longer in Experiment 3). It is therefore possible to discuss retrieval inhibition as an underlying mechanism of collaborative inhibition.