Interference in Geometrical Stoop like Task among Different Handed Persons

The Geometrical Stroop like task was administered to study the amount of interference in different handed persons in naming geometrical word and their shape when stimuli were presented in two different conditions congruent and incongruent in two visual fields (RVF and LVF). It was hypothesized that, the ability of visual perception can be differing of a person in terms of their handedness. 149 subjects were voluntary participated in this study in which 80 subjects were predominantly Right handed and rest of them were non-right handed, between 17 and 21 years old. Each pair of stimulus was presented for 180msec preceded by a fixation dot for 2000msec. Subjects were asked to respond as fast and as accurately as they could either the geometrical words or the shape or both, depending upon the conditions. Reaction times of correct responses were analyzed. As expected, the results of this study on the basis of Stroop-like experiment give us enough findings in support of hypothesis. The findings of current study indicate that congruency effect in both of the groups. A significantly higher accuracy rates were obtained in non right handed person under the Stroop interference condition. Under this same condition, reaction time analysis yielded also significant differences between two groups.

The perception of voice-initiating gestures

This study examines how variation in production is perceived and then (re)interpreted by listeners, thus providing the link between phonetic variation and sound change. We investigate whether listeners can detect the nasal leak that may accompany utterance-initial voiced stops in Spanish, and reinterpret it as a nasal segment. Such reinterpretation may account for a number of sound patterns involving emergent nasals adjacent to voiced stops in oral contexts. Oral pressure, nasal/oral airflow, and audio were recorded for utterance-initial /b d p t/ produced by 10 Spanish speakers. Tokens showing different degrees of nasal leak (nasal C, maximum, medium, and no nasal leak) were placed intervocalically, where both /C/ and /NC/ may occur. The stimuli were presented to Spanish listeners for identification as /VNCV/ or /V(C)CV/. Identification results indicate a higher number of VNCV responses with incremental changes in nasal leak in voiced but not voiceless stimuli. Reaction time analysis showed shorter latencies to nasal identification for larger velum leak stimuli. The results suggest that listeners can `hear' the nasal leak and fail to relate it to voicing initiation, interpreting a nasal segment. Thus a gesture aimed at facilitating voicing initiation may be interpreted as a new target goal.

Conflict: Run! Reduced Stroop interference with avoidance responses

Conflict has been hypothesized to be aversive, triggering avoidance behaviour (Botvinick, 2007). To test this hypothesis, a standard Stroop task was modified such that avoiding was part of the response set. More precisely, participants were asked to move a manikin towards or away from Stroop stimuli, depending on the colour of the words. Results showed that the type of response (approach versus avoidance) modulated the Stroop congruency effect. Specifically, the reaction time analysis revealed that the stimulus congruency effect disappeared with avoidance responses, contrary to approach responses where a stimulus congruency effect was present. Moreover, the error data showed a reduction of the general congruency effect when avoiding. These results suggest that in the face of conflict, avoidance is the predominant response.