P2-13: Location word Cues' Effect on Location Discrimination Task: Cross-Modal Study

Abstract

As is well known, participants are slower and make more errors in responding to the display color of an incongruent color word than a congruent one. This traditional stroop effect is often accounted for with relatively automatic and dominant word processing. Although the word dominance account has been widely supported, it is not clear in what extent of perceptual tasks it is valid. Here we aimed to examine whether the word dominance effect is observed in location stroop tasks and in audio-visual situations. The participants were required to press a key according to the location of visual (Experiment 1) and audio (Experiment 2) targets, left or right, as soon as possible. A cue of written (Experiments 1a and 2a) or spoken (Experiments 1b and 2b) location words, “left” or “right”, was presented on the left or right side of the fixation with cue lead times (CLT) of 200 ms and 1200 ms. Reaction time from target presentation to key press was recorded as a dependent variable. The results were that the location validity effect was marked in within-modality but less so in cross-modality trials. The word validity effect was strong in within- but not in cross-modality trials. The CLT gave some effect of inhibition of return. So the word dominance could be less effective in location tasks and in cross-modal situations. The spatial correspondence seems to overcome the word effect.