The Stroop effect and mental imagery

Abstract

The classic Stroop task is very simple: you have to name the color of words printed on a page. If these words are color words (like “red” or “blue”), where the color named and the color it is printed in are different (say, “red” printed in blue), the reaction time increases significantly. My aim is to argue that the existing psychological explanations of the Stroop effect need to be supplemented. The Stroop effect is not exclusively about access to motor control. It is also, to a large extent, about interferences in perceptual processing. To put it briefly, reading the color word triggers—laterally and automatically—visual imagery of the color and this interferes with the processing of the perceived color of the word. In other words, the Stroop effect is to a large extent a sensory phenomenon, and it has less to do with attention, conflict monitoring, or other higher-level phenomena.