Abstract
In the classical Stroop effect, response times for naming the color in which a word is printed are affected by the presence of semantic, phonological, or orthographic relationships between the stimulus word and the response word. We show that color naming responses are faster when the printed word shares a phoneme with the color name to be produced than when it does not, in conditions where there is no semantic relationship between the printed word and the color name. This result is compatible with a variety of computational models of reading. However, we also found that these effects are much larger when it is the first phoneme that the stimulus and response share than when it is the last. Our data are incompatible with computational models of reading in which the computation of phonology from print is purely parallel. The dual route cascaded model computational model of reading, which has a lexical route that operates in parallel and a nonlexical route that operates serially letter by letter, successfully simulates this position-sensitive Stroop effect. The model also successfully simulates the “onset effect” in masked priming (Forster & Davis, 1991) and the interaction between the regularity effect and the position in a word of a grapheme-phoneme irregularity (Rastle & Coltheart, 1999b)-effects which, we argue, arise for the same reason as the position-sensitive Stroop effect we report.
Article PDF
References
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., &van Rijn, H. (1993).The CELEX lexical database [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Linguistic Data Consortium.
Bakan, P., &Alperson, B. (1967). Pronounceability, attensity and interference in the color-word test.American Journal of Psychology,80, 416–420.
Baron, J., &Strawson, C. (1976). Use of orthographic and wordspecific knowledge in reading words aloud.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,2, 386–393.
Coltheart, M. (1978). Lexical access in simple reading tasks. In G. Underwood (Ed.),Strategies of information processing (pp. 151–216). London: Academic Press.
Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P., &Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches.Psychological Review,100, 589–608.
Coltheart, M., Langdon, R., &Haller, M. (1996). Computational cognitive neuropsychology. In B. Dodd, L. Worrall, & R. Campbell (Eds.),Models of language: Illuminations from impairment (pp. 9–36). London: Whurr.
Coltheart, M., &Rastle, K. (1994). A left-to-right serial process in reading aloud.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 1197–1211.
Dalrymple-Alford, E. C. (1972). Sound similarity and color-word interference in the Stroop task.Psychonomic Science,28, 209–210.
Forster, K. I., &Chambers, S. (1973). Lexical access and naming time.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,12, 627–635.
Forster, K. I., &Davis, C. (1991). The density constraint on formpriming in the naming task: Interference effects from a masked prime.Journal of Memory & Language,30, 1–25.
Forster, K. I., &Forster, J. C. (1990).User’s guide to the DMASTR display system. Tucson: University of Arizona.
Kawamoto, A., Kello, C., Jones, R., &Bame, K. (1998). Initial phoneme versus whole word criterion to initiate pronunciation: Evidence based on response latency and initial phoneme duration.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,24, 862–885.
Klein, G. S. (1964). Semantic power measured through the interference of words with color-naming.American Journal of Psychology,77, 576–588.
Plaut, D. C., McClelland, J. L., Seidenberg, M. S., &Patterson, K. (1996). Understanding normal and impaired word reading: Computational principles in quasi-regular domains.Psychological Review,103, 56–115.
Rastle, K., &Coltheart, M. (1998). Whammy and double whammy: Length effects in nonword naming.Psychonomic Bulletin & Reviews,5, 277–282.
Rastle, K., &Coltheart, M. (1999a). Lexical and nonlexical phonological priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 461–481.
Rastle, K., &Coltheart, M. (1999b). Serial and strategic effects in reading aloud.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 482–503.
Rastle, K.,Harrington, J. M.,Coltheart, M., &Palethorpe, S. (in press). Reading aloud begins when the computation of phonology finishes.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance.
Regan, J. (1978). Involuntary automatic processing in color-naming tasks.Perception & Psychophysics,24, 130–136.
Singer, M. H., Lappin, J. S., &Moore, L. P. (1975). The interference of various word parts on color naming in the Stroop test.Perception & Psychophysics,18, 191–193.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions.Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 643–662.
Zorzi, M., Houghton, G., &Butterworth, B. (1998). Two routes or one in reading aloud: A connectionist dual-route model.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,24, 1131–1161.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
We are grateful to Ken Forster for drawing our attention to the work of Dalrymple-Alford (1972) and for much helpful editorial comment, and to Kathy Rastle and Jo Ziegler for advice on the DRC and other models of reading.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coltheart, M., Woollams, A., Kinoshita, S. et al. A position-sensitive stroop effect: Further evidence for a left-to-right component in print-to-speech conversion. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 6, 456–463 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210835
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210835