Independent processing of stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 18;9(2):e89249. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089249. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The dimensional overlap (DO) model proposes distinct mechanisms for stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) conflict effects. Many studies have examined the independence of S-S and S-R conflict effects in the color-word Stroop and Simon tasks. However, confounds exist between the distinction of DO (i.e., S-S dimensional overlap compared with S-R dimensional overlap) and the distinction of stimulus attributes (e.g., color compared with spatial location; semantic compared with nonsemantic information), which may hinder interpretation of the independence of S-S and S-R conflicts. A spatial Stroop (word) task and a spatial Stroop (arrow) task were combined with a Simon task in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively to eliminate these confounds of stimulus attributes. The results showed that S-S and S-R conflicts affected performance additively. There was no significant correlation across participants. These findings lend further support to independent processing of S-S and S-R conflicts as it is outlined in the taxonomy of DO.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Female
  • Generalization, Stimulus*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Models, Psychological*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Stroop Test

Grants and funding

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 31200782, 31271194, 31070987), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant 7133250), Young Scientists Fund of the Institute of Psychology (Grant Y1CX242005), and National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (Grant 2012BAI36B01). Experimental data of this study may be requested via email. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.