Sources of color-word interference in the Stroop color-naming task

Abstract

The results of several previous experiments have suggested that interference in the Stroop color-naming task is greater for color words that are also members of the set of possible color-naming responses. However, all previous experiments had strength of association to the concept of color and, in most cases, word frequency confounded with membership in the response set. The present experiments controlled for these factors and obtained strong evidence that interference is substantially greater when the printed words are also members of the response set. In addition, it was shown that for color words that are not from the response set the amount of interference is a function of the strength of association of the words with the concept of color. It was concluded that there is selective activation of the color-naming response set in memory. Internal activation of the remaining color terms is a function of how strongly they are associated with other color-naming responses. © 1978 Psychonomic Society, Inc.