The Role of Joint Influence on the Cross-Modal Stroop Effect: Investigating Time Course and Asymmetry

Abstract

ABSTRACT We conducted three experiments to analyze the respective roles of the joint influence account and the word production architecture account within the cross-modal Stroop effect. We utilized a varied time course of targets and distractors and investigated the possible asymmetry of visual and auditory targets to determine the underlying mechanism of interference. In Experiment 1, we used color patches as the visual target. We found color-word Stroop asymmetry that supported the word-production architecture account; there was a Stroop interference effect when participants named visual but not auditory targets. In Experiment 2, we used printed words as the color carrier instead of color patches. The size of interference in visual targets in Experiment 2 was still greater than in auditory targets and was driven by additive interference from the visual distractor dimension, which supported the joint influence account. In Experiment 3, which was a replication of Experiment 2 that removed the integrated incongruent visual distractor, we concluded that target and distractor integration played a key role in moderating the size of the interference effect, and that the lesser interference after removing the incongruent visual distractor supported the joint influence account. In almost every possible combination of conditions, we detected color-word Stroop asymmetry, and while the results were consistent with both the joint influence and word production architecture account when color patches were used as the color carrier, the joint influence account could more completely explain the findings regardless of the color carrier. Further research should be done to establish how target and distractor integration operates within and across modalities, as well as the contexts in which the word production architecture account applies.