The mode of response and the Stroop effect: A reaction time analysis

• Main Author: Grega Repovš
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2004-08-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: Stroop task; attention; reaction times; verbal response; manual response
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2004_2/repovs2.pdf

While the classical card versions of the Stroop colour-word tasks employ verbal mode of response (the participants have to read the stimuli or name their ink colour aloud), the single-item computerised versions of the task frequently rely on manual mode of response (the participants need to signal the meaning of the stimuli or its ink colour by pressing the appropriate key). An experiment was carried out to directly assess possible ERP and reaction times differences between a verbal and a manual response mode version of the task. The comparison of reaction time results obtained on 22 students of psychology performing both verbal and manual response mode version of the task show longer reaction times for the manual version as well as important differences between the patterns of reaction times of individual conditions obtained in each version of the task. The result demonstrated a qualitative difference between the two versions of the task, which can be attributed to a stronger influence of automatic word reading in the verbal response mode version. The differences shown warn against a direct comparison of results obtained with different response mode versions of the Stroop colour-word task.