title: Revealing list-level control in the Stroop task by uncovering its benefits and a cost.
abstract: Interference is reduced in mostly incongruent relative to mostly congruent lists. Classic accounts of this list-wide proportion congruence effect assume that list-level control processes strategically modulate word reading. Contemporary accounts posit that reliance on the word is modulated poststimulus onset by item-specific information (e.g., proportion congruency of the word). To adjudicate between these accounts, we used novel designs featuring neutral trials. In two experiments, we showed that the list-wide proportion congruence effect is accompanied by a change in neutral trial color-naming performance. Because neutral words have no item-specific bias, this pattern can be attributed to list-level control. Additionally, we showed that list-level attenuation of word reading led to a cost to performance on a secondary prospective memory task but only when that task required processing of the irrelevant, neutral word. These findings indicate that the list-wide proportion congruence effect at least partially reflects list-level control and challenge purely item-specific accounts of this effect.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. jbugg@artsci.wustl.edu
authors.forename: Julie M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bugg
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McDaniel
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Scullin
authors.forename: Todd S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Braver
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013028:Space Perception; D057190:Stroop Test