The loci of Stroop effects: a critical review of methods and evidence for levels of processing contributing to color-word Stroop effects and the implications for the loci of attentional selection

Despite instructions to ignore the irrelevant word in the Stroop task, it robustly influences the time it takes to identify the color, leading to performance decrements (interference) or enhancements (facilitation). The present review addresses two questions: (1) What levels of processing contribute to Stroop effects; and (2) Where does attentional selection occur? The methods that are used in the Stroop literature to measure the candidate varieties of interference and facilitation are critically evaluated and the processing levels that contribute to Stroop effects are discussed. It is concluded that the literature does not provide clear evidence for a distinction between conflicting and facilitating representations at phonological, semantic and response levels (together referred to as informational conflict), because the methods do not currently permit their isolated measurement. In contrast, it is argued that the evidence for task conflict as being distinct from informational conflict is strong and, thus, that there are at least two loci of attentional selection in the Stroop task. Evidence suggests that task conflict occurs earlier, has a different developmental trajectory and is independently controlled which supports the notion of a separate mechanism of attentional selection. The modifying effects of response modes and evidence for Stroop effects at the level of response execution are also discussed. It is argued that multiple studies claiming to have distinguished response and semantic conflict have not done so unambiguously and that models of Stroop task performance need to be modified to more effectively account for the loci of Stroop effects.

What Influences the Historical Memory of Modern Students?

Historical memory is an object of informational conflict. This is why it is so important to study this phenomenon. Using the example of a survey of students in relation to important historical events in our country, including the Great Patriotic War, it is shown that while there is no radical transformation of the role of the past in the formation of personality, in the minds of most young people, historical memory is still a good form of patriotism education. The most effective mechanisms for preserving the memory of historical events are social institutions of education and family. At the same time, there is a “fading” of such a traditional and effective mechanism for preserving the memory of the Great Patriotic War as personal meetings with war veterans, personal communication with relatives who passed the war. It can be replaced by a mechanism for preserving memory, such as memoir literature of war participants, which is not yet popular among students. However, there is a problem: personal historical memory sometimes goes against the official interpretation of historical events. It can also serve as a mirror image of the social divide in society. In addition to traditional social institutions, civil society institutions can play an important role in shaping shared historical memory. If the latter are supported by the state, it is possible to avoid a conflict between cultural memory, which is closely related to traditions, and communicative memory. If these channels operate separately, or if, say, ideology tries to suppress other channels, historical memory is devalued and distorted. If all these channels work synchronously, they provide a huge effect. Different types of memory perform an important function – education of a citizen who would be responsible to past generations and to descendants.

Religious Belief and Cognitive Conflict Sensitivity: A Preregistered fMRI Study

In the current preregistered fMRI study, we investigated the relationship between religiosity and behavioral and neural mechanisms of conflict processing, as a conceptual replication of the study by Inzlicht et al. (2009). Participants (N = 193) performed a gender-Stroop task and afterwards completed standardized measures to assess their religiosity. As expected, the task induced cognitive conflict at the behavioral level and at a neural level this was reflected in increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, individual differences in religiosity were not related to performance on the Stroop task as measured in accuracy and interference effects, nor to neural markers of response conflict (correct responses vs. errors) or informational conflict (congruent vs. incongruent stimuli). Overall, we obtained moderate to strong evidence in favor of the null hypotheses that religiosity is unrelated to cognitive conflict sensitivity. We discuss the implications for the neuroscience of religion and emphasize the importance of designing studies that more directly implicate religious concepts and behaviors in an ecologically valid manner.