Modified Stroop Task Research Articles

The relationship of aerobic and motor fitness with executive functions in preadolescents

Recent research findings have indicated that aerobic fitness and motor fitness are related to specific executive functions (EF). However, it is not clear whether the relationships of these fitness factors with executive functions are dependent on each other. The goal of this study was thus to investigate the relationship of aerobic fitness, motor fitness, and their interaction with EF in preadolescents. The sample consisted of 137 students (67 boys) aged 9–10 years. Physical fitness assessment included measures of aerobic fitness (20 m shuttle run test) and motor fitness (Hurdle and crawl test), while EF assessment encompassed measures of inhibition (Modified Stroop task), shifting (Smiley task) and updating (Letter memory task). The results showed that motor fitness was positively related to inhibition, r = .22, p < .05, while aerobic fitness was positively related to shifting r = .22, p < .05. Multiple regression and post hoc analyses indicated that aerobic fitness was positively related to shifting only when motor fitness was also high (β = .44, p < .01). This pattern of results could indicate the potential relevance of high levels of both motor and aerobic fitness for EF.

The association between a history of self-reported concussion and response inhibition: a population-based study

ObjectiveWe investigated the long-term cognitive effects of concussion in almost 20,000 members of the general population, using tests that are known to be sensitive to small changes in performance.BackgroundConcussions are the most common type of mild traumatic brain injury, with clinical symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and nausea, persisting for months post-injury. Despite a growing understanding of the severity and duration of these symptoms, very little is known about the long-term effects of concussion on higher level cognitive functioning and emotional lability.Design/MethodsWe asked 19,261 participants to complete a demographic questionnaire as well as the Cambridge Brain Sciences (CBS) cognitive battery. We divided our sample into two groups: those reporting at least one concussion in their lifetime (post-concussion) and those reporting no concussions in their lifetime (non-concussed). We compared the performance of the two groups on the 12 CBS tasks, as well as on four non-cognitive variables measuring levels of social contact, anxiety, depression, and concentration difficulties.ResultsWe found that post-concussion individuals performed significantly worse on a modified Stroop task that measures aspects of response inhibition, but were no worse on any other cognitive measure, including short-term memory, reasoning, and verbal abilities. Crucially, performance profiles of the post-concussion individuals indicated that they made more errors on trials that involved an incongruent colour/word pair. Beyond measures of cognition, we found that post-concussion participants also reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, and trouble concentrating when compared to the non-concussed group. The number of reported concussions also predicted task scores on this task only.ConclusionsOur results suggest that sustaining a concussion is not associated with long-term global effects on cognition. Those who report at least one concussion appear to have a modest, but statistically significant deficit of response inhibition. This impairment seems to be related to the number of concussions reported.

Perceiving speed—The color can matter

AbstractThis study focuses on examining color effects of perceived speed in an individual noncompetitive sport context, treadmill running. In addition, the presence of individual trends for color effects are inspected by observing the connection of color effects in a sport‐specific video rating task with those found in an individual color association task. For this, 32 participants rated the perceived running speed of 48 videos depicting runners on a treadmill at seven different speed settings. Furthermore, participants rated a range of additional sport‐specific performance parameters. The runners in the video were shown wearing either a red, blue, or gray jersey, gray being used to strengthen the cover story. As a secondary task, the participants performed a modified Stroop task to assess implicit color associations. The results showed a significant color effect for speed; runners depicted in red were perceived as running at higher speeds compared to blue. No significant color effects were found for the other sport‐specific parameters. Finally, there was no significant covariate effect of the modified Stroop task for the speed perception color effect. These findings indicate that, in situations in which speed must be judged, red might be perceived as going faster.

Selective attentional bias to food-related stimuli in healthy individuals with characteristics towards orthorexia nervosa

PurposeIt has been argued that orthorexia nervosa (ON) is a unique type of disordered eating of food considered by the individual to be healthy. Given that in other eating disorder populations attentional preference for food-related cues influences eating behaviours, is it also likely that these biases may be a characteristic of ON tendency.MethodsEighty healthy individuals completed the ORTO-15 questionnaire (ON tendency), a modified Stroop task containing words related to healthy and unhealthy foods and perceived hunger levels pre- and post-testing. The ORTO-15 was used to identify participants within this sample who demonstrated more or less of the characteristics of ON.ResultsResults suggest that the presence of attentional bias to healthy, but not for unhealthy food-related stimuli independently predict increased ON tendency. Increased attentional bias towards healthy food-related stimuli is associated with increased scores on the ORTO-15.ConclusionAttentional bias, as a deficit in information processing, towards healthy food-related stimuli accounts for variability in ON characteristics.Level of evidenceLevel I, experimental study.

A-22 Interference from Alcohol Stimuli Predicts Executive Control Performance in Alcohol Users

Abstract Objective To investigate cognitive impairments associated with binge drinking, 78 college undergraduates (ages 18 to 50, M = 21, SD = 5.23) were recruited and categorized into alcohol use groups based on their reported consumption patterns (non-drinking, social drinking, or binge drinking). Method Participants completed a modified Stroop task to examine differential interference between alcohol and neutral targets and an attention network task (ANT) to measure within and between group variance in attentional performance across the alerting, orienting, and executive control networks. Results There were no significant performance differences between alcohol use groups on either task. However, a significant negative association between alcohol Stroop interference and executive control performance was observed for both the binge and social drinking groups, β = .033, t(48) = 3.81, p &lt; .001, 95% CI [.016, .051]. This was a moderately large effect (η2p = .23) which was not significant for non-drinking individuals. Conclusions This experiment provides evidence that attentional interference from alcohol stimuli indicates broader executive control impairment in alcohol users, further illustrating the role of this domain in problematic drinking behaviors. Our findings affirm the significance of executive control assessment in the screening and treatment protocol for alcohol use disorders.

Does long-term focus increase victim-blaming? A study on the just-world hypothesis using the modified Stroop task

According to the just-world hypothesis (Lerner, 1980), people have an inherent need to believe that the world is a just place, where people generally get wha t they deserve. One of the benefits of holding this conviction is that it can promote investing in long-term goals. Acts of secondary victimization, such as blaming or derogating the victim can also be explained by just-world beliefs. This study looked at the effect of perceiving an innocent victim (a supposed threat to the belief in a just world) and long-term focus on the activation of the justice motive. We measured participants’ reaction times for justice-related and other stimuli with the help of the modified Stroop task (N=66). A significant difference between justice-related and neutral words has been found after being confronted with the threat to the belief in a just world, indicating that it indeed activated participants’ justice motive. Long-term focus did not have any significant effect. Higher levels of belief in a random world have been associated with greater victim-blaming tendencies.

Detecting feigned high impact experiences: A symptom over-report questionnaire outperforms the emotional Stroop task

Background and objectivesThe Modified Stroop Task (MST) effect refers to a prolonged reaction time (RT) in color-naming words related to an individual's disorder. Some authors argue that its absence in people who claim symptoms might be an indication of feigning. MethodWe tested whether the MST effect is robust against feigning attempts and compared its absence as an index of feigning with over-reporting tendencies on a symptom questionnaire (i.e., the Self-Reported Symptom Inventory (SRSI)). We included participants (n = 22) who i) reported current high impact of aversive experiences (High scorers), ii) reported current low impact (Low scorers) of aversive experiences (n = 24), and iii) actors (n = 18) with low impact, but instructed to feign current high psychological impact of aversive life events (Simulators). We administered the MST, including impact-related, neutral, and feigning-related words, and the SRSI. ResultsWe found no MST effect for impact-related words in the high scorers group, or for feigning-related words in the simulators. Relative to high scorers and low scorers, simulators exhibited significantly longer RTs on all types of words and they also endorsed significantly more bogus symptoms on the SRSI. Thus, the SRSI was a more sensitive measure of feigning than the absence of an MST effect. LimitationSome limitations are related to our reliance on a sub-clinical student sample, whereas others reflect the unresolved issues surrounding the MST. Thus, the generalizability of our results is uncertain. ConclusionOur findings add to the doubts on the idea that the MST can be used to differentiate between genuine and feigned complaints.

Effects of age, sex, and puberty on neural efficiency of cognitive and motor control in adolescents.

Critical changes in adolescence involve brain cognitive maturation of inhibitory control processes that are essential for a myriad of adult functions. Cognitive control advances into adulthood as there is more flexible integration of component processes, including inhibitory control of conflicting information, overwriting inappropriate response tendencies, and amplifying relevant responses for accurate execution. Using a modified Stroop task with fMRI, we investigated the effects of age, sex, and puberty on brain functional correlates of cognitive and motor control in 87 boys and 91 girls across the adolescent age range. Results revealed dissociable brain systems for cognitive and motor control processes, whereby adolescents flexibly adapted neural responses to control demands. Specifically, when response repetitions facilitated planning-based action selection, frontoparietal-insular regions associated with cognitive control operations were less activated, whereas cortical-pallidal-cerebellar motor regions associated with motor skill acquisition, were more activated. Attenuated middle cingulate cortex activation occurred with older adolescent age for both motor control and cognitive control with automaticity from repetition learning. Sexual dimorphism for control operations occurred in extrastriate cortices involved in visuo-attentional selection: While boys enhanced extrastriate selection processes for motor control, girls activated these regions more for cognitive control. These sex differences were attenuated with more advanced pubertal stage. Together, our findings show that brain cognitive and motor control processes are segregated, demand-specific, more efficient in older adolescents, and differ between sexes relative to pubertal development. Our findings advance our understanding of how distributed brain activity and the neurodevelopment of automaticity enhances cognitive and motor control ability in adolescence.

Food Cue Reactivity and the Brain-Heart Axis During Cognitive Stress Following Clinically Relevant Weight Loss

Successful weight loss maintainers are more vulnerable to stress induced eating. The aim of our study was to determine what effect an attention-demanding cognitive performance task had on brain-heart reactivity to visual food cues in women who maintained clinically relevant weight loss vs. women who had never weight cycled. A clinical weight loss group (CWL, n = 17) and a BMI-matched control group (CTL, n = 23) completed modified Stroop tasks that either included high calorie food pictures (Food Stroop) or excluded food cues (Office Stroop). ECG, breathing rate, and EEG were recorded. CWL participants: The Eating Restraint scores (Three Factor Eating Questionnaire) of the CWL participants correlated negatively with their heart rates recorded during the Food Stroop task (r = 0.62, p < 0.01). There was no such relationship in CTL participants. The P200 latencies in CWL participants evoked by the Stroop color-word cues at the C3 electrode were positively correlated to the log high frequency power in their cardiac spectrograms during the Food Stroop (r = 0.63, p < 0.02). There were no such relationships in the Office Stroop task nor in CTL participants. Combined Groups: Participants' heart rates were significantly lower (p < 0.05) and their RMSSD values and the log Total Power in their cardiac spectrograms were significantly greater during the Food Stroop vs. Office Stroop (p < 0.01, Bonferroni corrected). In conclusion Eating Restraint scores in CWL participants correlated with their Stroop heart rates, while the P200 latencies evoked by the Stroop cues correlated with the log high frequency power in their cardiac spectrograms (marker of cardiac vagal activation) during the Food Stroop task. This provides evidence that even 12 months after successful weight loss maintenance the cardiac ANS reactivity to food cues while completing a cognitive performance test was still different to that in individuals of normal weight who never weight cycled. Across all participants the cardiac ANS reactivity evoked by performing the Stroop task was lowered by food cues suggesting that the dampening effect of food cues on cardiac ANS reactivity may be one of the drivers of ‘stress induced' eating.

Ongoing monitoring of mindwandering in avoidant grief through cortico-basal-ganglia interactions.

An avoidant grief style is marked by repeated and often unsuccessful attempts to prevent thinking about loss. Prior work shows avoidant grief involves monitoring the external environment in order to avoid reminders of the loss. Here we sought to determine whether avoidant grievers also monitor the internal environment in attempts to minimize conscious awareness of loss-related thoughts. Individuals bereaved of a first-degree relative, spouse or partner within the last 14 months participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study (N = 29). We first applied machine learning to train neural patterns for attentional control and representation of the deceased (N = 23). The attentional pattern was trained using fMRI data from a modified Stroop task assessing selective attention to reminders of the deceased. The representational pattern was trained using fMRI data from a task presenting pictures and stories of the deceased. We observed spontaneous fluctuations in these processes occurring during a neutral mindwandering fMRI task (N = 27). At higher levels of avoidant grieving, activation of attentional control disrupted the relationship between the representational process and thoughts of loss. These findings show that avoidant grief involves attentional control to reduce the likelihood that deceased-related representations reach full conscious awareness.

Connectome-based models predict attentional control in aging adults

There are well-characterized age-related differences in behavioral and neural responses to tasks of attentional control. However, there is also increasing recognition of individual variability in the process of neurocognitive aging. Using connectome-based predictive modeling, a method for predicting individual-level behaviors from whole-brain functional connectivity, a sustained attention connectome-based prediction model (saCPM) has been derived in young adults. The saCPM consists of two large-scale functional networks: a high-attention network whose strength predicts better attention and a low-attention network whose strength predicts worse attention. Here we examined the generalizability of the saCPM for predicting inhibitory control in an aging sample. Forty-two healthy young adults (n = 21, ages 18–30) and older adults (n = 21, ages 60–80) performed a modified Stroop task, on which older adults exhibited poorer performance, indexed by higher reaction time cost between incongruent and congruent trials. The saCPM generalized to predict reaction time cost across age groups, but did not account for age-related differences in performance. Exploratory analyses were conducted to characterize the effects of age on functional connectivity and behavior. We identified subnetworks of the saCPM that exhibited age-related differences in strength. The strength of two low-attention subnetworks, consisting of frontoparietal, medial frontal, default mode, and motor nodes that were more strongly connected in older adults, mediated the effect of age group on performance. These results support the saCPM's ability to capture attention-related patterns reflected in each individual's functional connectivity signature across both task context and age. However, older and younger adults exhibit functional connectivity differences within components of the saCPM networks, and it is these connections that better account for age-related deficits in attentional control.

The Modified Stroop Task Is Susceptible to Feigning: Stroop Performance and Symptom Over-endorsement in Feigned Test Anxiety.

Some researchers argue that the modified Stroop task (MST) can be employed to rule out feigning. According to these authors, modified Stroop interference effects are beyond conscious control and therefore indicative of genuine psychopathology. We examined this assumption using a within-subject design. In the first session, students (N = 22) responded honestly, while in the second session they were asked to read a vignette about test anxiety and then fake this condition. During both sessions, we administered an MST consisting of neutral, anxiety-related, and test anxiety-related words. Participants also completed the Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI; Merten et al., 2016) that focuses on over-reporting of pseudosymptoms. Our feigning instructions were successful in that students succeeded in generating the typical MST effect by providing longer response latencies on anxiety related (r = 0.43) and test anxiety-related (r = 0.31) words, compared with neutral words. Furthermore, students endorsed significantly more pseudosymptoms on the SRSI (r = 0.62) in the feigning session than in the honest control condition. We conclude that the MST effect is not immune to feigning tendencies, while the SRSI provides promising results that require future research.

Selective attentional bias for novel psychoactive substance (NPS) and expectancy-related stimuli among nonproblematic NPS users and never NPS users

ABSTRACTBackground: Novel psychoactive substance (NPS) use has emerged as a new trend in the recreational drug market with increasing prevalence and availability rates. Little evidence has focussed on psychologically based cognitive/motivational processes that may increase the likelihood of continuing NPS use leading to habitual behavior patterns/dependence. One such process, highlighted in studies examining a plethora of addictive behaviors, concerns users’ preferential attention (attentional bias) to concern-related stimuli. Methods: The current study assessed whether current NPS users compared to never NPS users showed differential attentional processing of (i) NPS-related words, (ii) NPS positive expectancy words, and (iii) NPS negative expectancy words in a modified Stroop task. Results: For NPS users, only negative expectancies captured increased attention—the semantic nature of the word interfered with the secondary task of color-naming the ink within the Stroop task. In addition, the magnitude of this attentional bias was significantly different from zero (the point of no registered interference). Finally, we found no association between attentional biases for all word types and severity of problems associated with NPS use in NPS users. Conclusions: Among nonproblematic NPS users, expectancy-based cognitions may be characterized by highly accessible negative NPS expectancies that are salient for attentional capture and preoccupation.

Selective attention to smoking cues in former smokers

Repeated drug use modifies the emotional and cognitive processing of drug-associated cues. These changes are supposed to persist even after prolonged abstinence. Several studies demonstrated that smoking cues selectively attract the attention of smokers, but empirical evidence for such an attentional bias among successful quitters is inconclusive. Here, we investigated whether attentional biases persist after smoking cessation. Thirty-eight former smokers, 34 current smokers, and 29 non-smokers participated in a single experimental session. We used three measures of attentional bias for smoking stimuli: A visual probe task with short (500ms) and long (2000ms) picture stimulus durations, and a modified Stroop task with smoking-related and neutral words. Former smokers and current smokers, as compared to non-smokers, showed an attentional bias in visual orienting to smoking pictures in the 500ms condition of the visual probe task. The Stroop interference index of smoking words was negatively related to nicotine dependence in current smokers. Former smokers and mildly dependent smokers, as compared to non-smokers, showed increased interference by smoking words in the Stroop task. Neither current nor former smokers showed an attentional bias in maintained attention (2000ms visual probe task). In conclusion, even after prolonged abstinence smoking cues retain incentive salience in former smokers, who differed from non-smokers on two attentional bias indices. Attentional biases in former smokers operate mainly in early involuntary rather than in controlled processing, and may represent a vulnerability factor for relapse. Therefore, smoking cessation programs should strengthen self-control abilities to prevent relapses.

Reading Pinyin activates character orthography for highly experienced learners of Chinese

Does reading Pinyin, a Roman alphabet transcription of Chinese, cause the implicit activation of the corresponding Chinese character? To address this question, we carried out two experiments with adult Chinese learners, measuring interference in character reading in a modified Stroop task. Participants first made a meaning judgment on a Pinyin word, and then judged the printed color of a character that was either visually related or unrelated to the character that corresponded to the Pinyin word. A character orthographic interference effect was observed for advanced Chinese learners but not intermediate Chinese learners. The proficiency-dependent emergence of this interference effect suggests its dependence on Chinese character reading experience. For models of Chinese reading, the results demonstrate the role of the character as a gateway to meaning that, through reading experience, comes to be routinely involved in reading for meaning, whether the input is a character or an alphabetic spelling.

Capturing spontaneous trait inference with the modified free association paradigm

Spontaneous Trait Inference (STI) is a psychological phenomenon that allows people to infer personality traits from others' behaviors without any intention or awareness. This phenomenon helps us organize our complex social world and ultimately it shapes our interaction with others. The goal of this manuscript is 1) to conduct a systematic analysis of the different types of measures that are currently used to detect inferences, 2) to identify their main limitations and 3) to propose a new paradigm that overcomes most of these limitations. The new paradigm is based on the modified free association task that Hourihan and MacLeod (2007) proposed as a pure conceptual implicit memory measure. This new paradigm simultaneously overcomes the contamination problem of memory measures and the dependency on data-driven processing of the activation measures. In the presented experiments we use the modified free association paradigm to detect STIs and also to compare its results to the naming task and the modified Stroop task. We show that this measure is able to reliably detect STI and discuss why it is more appropriate to study inferences. Additionally, we show that it can be used to investigate the underlying processes responsible for STI and to distinguish it from similar but different phenomena like Spontaneous Trait Transference. This manuscript focuses on STIs, but the arguments presented here apply to any research field that investigates spontaneous inference making.

Effects of Aging Stereotype Threat on Working Self-Concepts: An Event-Related Potentials Approach.

Although the influence of stereotype threat (ST) on working self-concepts has been highlighted in recent years, its neural underpinnings are unclear. Notably, the aging ST, which largely influences older adults’ cognitive ability, mental and physical health, did not receive much attention. In order to investigate these issues, electroencephalogram (EEG) data were obtained from older adults during a modified Stroop task using neutral words, positive and negative self-concept words in aging ST vs. neutral control conditions. Results showed longer reaction times (RTs) for identifying colors of words under the aging ST compared to the neutral condition. More importantly, the negative self-concept elicited more positive late P300 amplitudes and enhanced theta band activities compared to the positive self-concept or neutral words under the aging ST condition, whereas no difference was found between these self-concepts and neutral words in the control condition. Furthermore, the aging ST induced smaller theta band synchronization and enhanced alpha band synchronization compared to the control condition. Moreover, we also observed valence differences in self-concepts where the negative self-concept words reduced early P150/N170 complex relative to neutral words. These findings suggest that priming ST could activate negative self-concepts as current working self-concept, and that this influence occurred during a late neural time course.

Attentional processing of itch

Itch is a prevalent somatosensory symptom that can be highly disabling, because it is likely to draw attention and, as a result, may interfere with the performance of daily activities. Yet, research experimentally investigating attention to itch is lacking. In this study we aimed to investigate attentional processing of itch using multiple behavioral attention tasks. Forty-one healthy participants performed (1) a modified Stroop task with itch-related words, (2) a dot-probe task with itch-related pictures, and (3) a recently developed somatosensory attention task in which the effect of experimentally induced itch on the localization of visual targets was examined. Additionally, a number of self-report questionnaires related to somatosensory attentional processing were administered. Results indicated that participants’ attention was biased toward itch-related words and pictures assessed by means of the dot-probe and modified Stroop task, respectively. For the somatosensory attention task, results showed that itch did not significantly influence the allocation of attention. However, when taking into account the time course of attention during the itch stimulus, data suggested that participants tended to disengage attention away during the itch stimulus. This is the first study that indicates an attentional bias for itch, using methods that have previously been validated for other sensations such as pain. In addition, the newly developed somatosensory attention task may reflect the time course of attention toward a tonic itch stimulus.

Attentional bias toward suicide-relevant information in suicide attempters: A cross-sectional study and a meta-analysis

ObjectivePrevious studies using a modified Stroop test suggested that suicide attempters, in contrast to depressed patients with no suicidal history, display a particular attentional bias toward suicide-related cues. However, negative results have also been reported. In the present study, we collected new data and pooled them as part of a meta-analysis intended to shed further light on this question.MethodWe conducted:– a cross-sectional study comparing performance on the modified Stroop task for suicide-related, positively-valenced and negatively-valenced words in 33 suicide attempters and 46 patient controls with a history of mood disorders;– a systematic review and a meta-analysis of studies comparing performance on the modified Stroop task among patients with vs. without a history of suicidal acts in mood disorders.ResultsThe cross-sectional study showed no significant difference in interference scores for any type of words between suicide attempters and patient controls. A meta-analysis of four studies, including 233 suicide attempters and 768 patient controls, showed a significant but small attentional bias toward suicide-related words (Hedges’g = 0.22; 95% CI [0.06 to 0.38]; Z = 2.73; P = 0.006), but not negatively-valenced words (Hedges’g = 0.06; 95% CI [−0.09 to 0.22]; Z = 0.77; P = 0.4) in suicide attempters compared to patient controls.LimitationsPositively-valenced words and healthy controls could not be assessed in the meta-analysis.ConclusionOur data support a selective information-processing bias among suicide attempters. Indirect evidence suggests that this effect would be state-related and may be a cognitive component of the suicidal crisis. However, we could not conclude about the clinical utility of this Stroop version at this stage.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Trait anxiety, infrequent emotional conflict, and the emotional face Stroop task

Research shows that anxiety may relate to any or all of the following: goal conflict resolution; distraction, and the automatic detection of threat-related stimuli. To investigate these relationships we used a modified Stroop task where fearful and happy emotional target faces are overlaid with either emotionally neutral, emotionally congruent or emotionally incongruent distracting words. A trait anxiety related speed-accuracy trade-off seemed to primarily reduce accuracy during incongruent trials with target fearful faces overlaid with the emotionally conflicting word happy. We offer an explanation of this effect based upon theories of how positive stimuli and threat-related stimuli differentially affect information processing. Future studies should seek to verify how the anxiety related speed-accuracy trade-off mechanism is activated, and elucidate how and when positive stimuli affect anxiety more than threat-related stimuli do.