title: Exploring relations between task conflict and informational conflict in the Stroop task.
abstract: In this study, we tested the proposal that the Stroop task involves two conflicts--task conflict and informational conflict. Task conflict was defined as the latency difference between color words and non-letter neutrals, and manipulated by varying the proportion of color words versus non-letter neutrals. Informational conflict was defined as the latency difference between incongruent and congruent trials and manipulated by varying the congruent-to-incongruent trial ratio. We replicated previous findings showing that increasing the ratio of incongruent-to-congruent trials reduces the latency difference between the incongruent and congruent condition (i.e., informational conflict), as does increasing the proportion of color words (i.e., task conflict). A significant under-additive interaction between the two proportion manipulations (congruent vs. incongruent and color words vs. neutrals) indicated that the effects of task conflict and informational conflict were not additive. By assessing task conflict as the contrast between color words and neutrals, we found that task conflict existed in all of our experimental conditions. Under specific conditions, when task conflict dominated behavior by explaining most of the variability between congruency conditions, we also found negative facilitation, thus demonstrating that this effect is a special case of task conflict.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, 84105, Israel. entel@post.bgu.ac.il.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Entel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, 84105, Israel.|Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tzelgov
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Yoella
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bereby-Meyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Nitzan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shahar
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Control; Informational conflict; Negative facilitation; Stroop task; Task conflict