Pictorial interference with geometric shapes and achromatic shades

Abstract

In two experiments, subjects were required to match printed names with subsequently displayed achromatic shades or geoinetric shapes. The presence of incongruent shades or shapes at the time of word display substantially slowed the RT for performing the match. This pictorial interference (interference due to a visual, nonlingalistic attributel was substantially attenuated, however, as the delay between the word display and shapes or shades to be matched was increased beyond 100 msec. These findings illnstrate the occurrence of a transitory automatic pathway activation from an irrelevant pictorial attribute, which may be contrasted with the verbal interference effects typically observed in Stroop-naming tasks. In both our tasks and the Stroop task, selectiwe attention fails when a stimulus must be transformed to another form of encoding in the presence of a competing stimulns which is already close to that form. © 1977 Psychonomic Society, Inc.