A reverse Stroop effect without translation or reading difficulty

Abstract

It is well known that irrelevant color words affect the time needed to identify the color they are displayed in (the Stroop effect). One major view is that a reverse Stroop effect (RSE)--in which the irrelevant color affects the time needed to identify the word--does not occur unless a translation is needed between domain-specific memory codes. In the present article, we report an experiment in which the reverse Stroop effect was investigated by having subjects identify a colored word at fixation by pointing to a location on the screen containing that word. Although the response was untranslated, an RSE was observed. An account is provided in which the strength of association between a stimulus and a specific response plays a central role.