scholarly journals Response competition better explains Stroop interference than does response exclusion

Author(s):  
Ardi Roelofs

AbstractResearchers debate whether Stroop interference from an incongruent word in color-naming response time is caused by response competition or by response exclusion. According to the former account, the interference reflects competition in lexical response selection during color name planning, whereas according to the latter, the interference reflects the removal of a motor program for the incongruent word from an articulatory buffer after planning. Here, numerical predictions about the magnitude of Stroop interference as a function of stimulus onset asynchrony were derived from these accounts. These predictions were then tested on representative data in the literature. Measures of goodness-of-fit showed that the numerical predictions of a response competition account are closer to the empirical data than those of the response exclusion account. These results indicate that response competition provides a better explanation of interference in naming than does response exclusion.

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
C. Lemercier ◽  
A. Simoës-Perlant ◽  
J.R. Schmidt ◽  
C. Boujon

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 603-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter R. Roelfsema ◽  
Andreas K. Engel ◽  
Peter König ◽  
Wolf Singer

Recent experimental results in the visual cortex of cats and monkeys have suggested an important role for synchronization of neuronal activity on a millisecond time scale. Synchronization has been found to occur selectively between neuronal responses to related image components. This suggests that not only the firing rates of neurons but also the relative timing of their action potentials is used as a coding dimension. Thus, a powerful relational code would be available, in addition to the rate code, for the representation of perceptual objects. This could alleviate difficulties in the simultaneous representation of multiple objects. In this article we present a set of theoretical arguments and predictions concerning the mechanisms that could group neurons responding to related image components into coherently active aggregates. Synchrony is likely to be mediated by synchronizing connections; we introduce the concept of an interaction skeleton to refer to the subset of synchronizing connections that are rendered effective by a particular stimulus configuration. If the image is segmented into objects, these objects can typically be segmented further into their constituent parts. The synchronization behavior of neurons that represent the various image components may accurately reflect this hierarchical clustering. We propose that the range of synchronizing interactions is a dynamic parameter of the cortical network, so that the grain of the resultant grouping process may be adapted to the actual behavioral requirements. It can be argued that different aspects of purposeful behavior rely on separable processes by which sensory input is transformed into adjustments of motor activity. Indeed, neurophysiological evidence has suggested separate processing streams originating in the primary visual cortex for object identification and sensorimotor coordination. However, such a separation calls for a mechanism that avoids interference effects in the presence of multiple objects, or when multiple motor programs are simultaneously prepared. In this article we suggest that synchronization between responses of neurons in both the visual cortex and in areas that are involved in response selection and execution might allow for a selective routing of sensory information to the appropriate motor program.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 504
Author(s):  
Alvaro Sanchez-Lopez ◽  
Rafael Quinto-Guillen ◽  
Josefa Pérez-Lucas ◽  
Rosa Jurado-Barba ◽  
Isabel Martínez-Grass ◽  
...  

Attention bias for alcohol has proved useful to distinguish people with a pathological consumption of people who do not, and dependents who are more likely to fall in consumption. The aim of this study was to validate the Spanish version of the Alcohol Stroop test, designed to evaluate attention biases for alcohol in alcohol-dependent patients. The sample was composed by 173 participants divided into 2 groups: 1) “Patients” (<em>n = </em>88) meeting criteria for alcohol dependence; and 2) “Control” (<em>n = </em>85) having a low risk for alcohol consumption, that completed the Stroop color naming Task (Classic Stroop), the Neutral Stroop test and the alcohol Stroop test. Statistically significant differences were found in the interference effects calculated for the Classic and Alcohol Stroop tests. Patients compared to control participants showed a higher interference effect for alcohol-related stimuli than for neutral stimuli. These effects were accounted by an attention bias for alcohol-related information in patients. ROC curves were calculated for the three interference effects, showing an area under the curve statistically significant in the Classic Stroop interference and the Alcohol Stroop interference. This study provides the validation of the Spanish version of the Alcohol Stroop test that allows to evaluate attention biases for alcohol stimuli in individuals with both pathologic alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 671-682
Author(s):  
James A Mills ◽  
Jeffrey D Long ◽  
Amrita Mohan ◽  
Jennifer J Ware ◽  
Cristina Sampaio

Abstract Background The progression of Huntington’s disease (HD) for gene-expanded carriers is well-studied. Natural aging effects, however, are not often considered in the evaluation of HD progression. Objective To examine the effects of natural aging for healthy controls and to develop normative curves by age, sex, and education from the distribution of observed scores for the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, Stroop Word Reading Test, Stroop Color Naming Test, Stroop Interference Test, Total Motor Score, and Total Functional Capacity (TFC) from the Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) along with a composite score. Methods After combining longitudinal REGISTRY and Enroll-HD data, we used quantile regression and natural cubic splines for age to fit models for healthy controls (N = 3,394; N observations = 8,619). Normative curves were estimated for the 0.05, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 0.95 quantiles. Two types of reference curves were considered: unconditional curves were dependent on age alone, whereas conditional curves were dependent on age and other covariates, namely sex and education. Results Conditioning on education was necessary for the Symbol Digit, Stroop Word, Stroop Color, Stroop Interference, and composite UHDRS. Unconditional curves were sufficient for the Total Motor Score. TFC was unique in that the curve was constant over age with its intercept at the maximum score (TFC = 13). For all measures, sex effects were minimal, so conditioning on sex was unwarranted. Conclusions Extreme quantile estimates for each measure can be considered as boundaries for natural aging and scores falling beyond these thresholds are likely the result of disease progression. Normative curves and tables are developed and can serve as references for clinical characterization in HD.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY L. CODERRE ◽  
WALTER J. B. VAN HEUVEN ◽  
KATHY CONKLIN

Executive control abilities and lexical access speed in Stroop performance were investigated in English monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals (English–Chinese and Chinese–English) in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Predictions were based on a bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, implicating cognitive control ability as the critical factor determining Stroop interference; and two bilingual lexical disadvantage hypotheses, focusing on lexical access speed. Importantly, each hypothesis predicts different response patterns in a Stroop task manipulating stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). There was evidence for a bilingual cognitive advantage, although this effect was sensitive to a number of variables including proficiency, language immersion, and script. In lexical access speed, no differences occurred between monolinguals and bilinguals in their native languages, but there was evidence for a delay in L2 processing speed relative to the L1. Overall, the data highlight the multitude of factors affecting executive control and lexical access speed in bilinguals.


eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youna Vandaele ◽  
Magalie Lenoir ◽  
Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza ◽  
Karine Guillem ◽  
Serge H Ahmed

Delineating the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards remains a challenge. This study adopts an original approach to probe these mechanisms by comparing response latencies during sampling versus choice trials. While lengthening of latencies during choice is predicted in a deliberative choice model (DCM), the race-like response competition mechanism postulated by the Sequential choice model (SCM) predicts a shortening of latencies during choice compared to sampling. Here, we tested these predictions by conducting a retrospective analysis of cocaine-versus-saccharin choice experiments conducted in our laboratory. We found that rats engage deliberative decision-making mechanisms after limited training, but adopt a SCM-like response selection mechanism after more extended training, while their behavior is presumably habitual. Thus, the DCM and SCM may not be general models of choice, as initially formulated, but could be dynamically engaged to control choice behavior across early and extended training.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (10) ◽  
pp. 1564-1574
Author(s):  
Florian Kattner ◽  
Christina B Reimer

Central and auditory attention are limited in capacity. In dual-tasks, central attention is required to select the appropriate response, but because central attention is limited in capacity, response selection can only be carried out for one task at a time. In auditory search tasks, search time to detect the target sound increases with the number of distractor sounds added to the auditory scene (set sizes), indicating that auditory attention is limited in capacity. Here, we investigated whether central and auditory attention relied on common or distinct capacity limitations using a dual-task paradigm. In two experiments, participants completed a visual choice discrimination task (task 1) together with an auditory search task (task 2), and the two tasks were separated by an experimentally modulated stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Analysing auditory search time as a function of SOA and set sizes (locus-of-slack method) revealed that the auditory search process in task 2 was performed after response selection in a visual two-choice discrimination task 1 (Experiment 1), but concurrently with response selection in a visual four-choice discrimination task 1 (Experiment 2). Hence, although response selection in the visual four-choice discrimination task demanded more central attention as compared with response selection in the two-choice discrimination task, the auditory search process was performed in parallel. Distribution analyses of inter-response time further indicated that parallel processing of response selection and auditory search was not influenced by response grouping. Taken together, the two experiments provided evidence that central and auditory attention relied on distinct capacity limitations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (6) ◽  
pp. 1522-1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W Booth

Since the 1960s, researchers have been reporting that stress reduces Stroop interference. This is puzzling, as stress and anxiety typically have deleterious effects on cognitive control and performance. The traditional explanation is that stress reduces “cue utilisation”: It withdraws attentional resources from less relevant stimuli (including the distracter word), meaning that the target colour is left with a stronger influence over response selection. However, it could also be that stress somehow boosts distracter inhibition, or some other aspect of executive control. To test these two accounts, 59 students completed a Stroop task featuring occasional startlingly loud sounds (high stress) or the same sounds at a lower, comfortable volume (low stress). Alongside standard Stroop interference, two measures of executive control—negative priming and conflict adaptation—were calculated from the Stroop data. Stress produced a clear reduction of Stroop interference, but it did not influence negative priming, and no conflict adaptation effects were detected at all. These findings support the cue utilisation account. Furthermore, for the first time, stress was shown to reduce Stroop interference in a task with no congruent trials, showing that the effect does not result from stress’s modulating any strategy changes participants might make in response to congruent trials.


2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 781-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Scerif ◽  
Michael S. Worden ◽  
Matthew Davidson ◽  
Liat Seiger ◽  
B. J. Casey

When responding to stimuli in our environment, the presence of multiple items associated with task-relevant responses affects both ongoing response selection and subsequent behavior. Computational modeling of conflict monitoring and neuroimaging data predict that the recent context of response competition will bias the selection of certain stimuli over others very early in the processing stream through increased focal spatial attention. We used high-density EEG to test this hypothesis and to investigate the contextual effects on nonspatial, early stimulus processing in a modified flanker task. Subjects were required to respond to a central arrow and to ignore potentially conflicting information from flanking arrows in trials preceded by a series of either compatible or incompatible trials. On some trials, we presented the flanking arrows in the absence of the central target. The visual P1 component was selectively enhanced only for incompatible trials when preceded by incompatible ones, suggesting that contextual effects depend on feature-based processing, and not only simple enhancement of the target location. Context effects also occurred on no-target trials as evidenced by an enhanced early-evoked response when they followed compatible compared to incompatible trials, suggesting that spatial attention was also modulated by recent context. These results support a multi-componential account of spatial and nonspatial attention and they suggest that contextually driven cognitive control mechanisms can operate on specific stimulus features at extremely early stages of processing within stimulus-response conflict tasks.


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