Booth Robert W
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabancı University, İstanbul, Turkey.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2019 Jun;72(6):1522-1529. doi: 10.1177/1747021818809368. Epub 2018 Nov 7.
Since the 1960s, researchers have been reporting that stress reduces Stroop interference. This is puzzling, as stress and anxiety typically have deleterious effects on cognitive control and performance. The traditional explanation is that stress reduces "cue utilisation": It withdraws attentional resources from less relevant stimuli (including the distracter word), meaning that the target colour is left with a stronger influence over response selection. However, it could also be that stress somehow boosts distracter inhibition, or some other aspect of executive control. To test these two accounts, 59 students completed a Stroop task featuring occasional startlingly loud sounds (high stress) or the same sounds at a lower, comfortable volume (low stress). Alongside standard Stroop interference, two measures of executive control-negative priming and conflict adaptation-were calculated from the Stroop data. Stress produced a clear reduction of Stroop interference, but it did not influence negative priming, and no conflict adaptation effects were detected at all. These findings support the cue utilisation account. Furthermore, for the first time, stress was shown to reduce Stroop interference in a task with no congruent trials, showing that the effect does not result from stress's modulating any strategy changes participants might make in response to congruent trials.
自20世纪60年代以来，研究人员一直报告称压力会降低斯特鲁普干扰效应。这令人困惑，因为压力和焦虑通常会对认知控制和表现产生有害影响。传统的解释是，压力会降低“线索利用”：它从相关性较低的刺激（包括干扰词）中撤回注意力资源，这意味着目标颜色对反应选择的影响更强。然而，也有可能是压力以某种方式增强了干扰抑制，或者是执行控制的其他方面。为了验证这两种说法，59名学生完成了一项斯特鲁普任务，任务中偶尔会出现非常响亮的声音（高压力）或同样的声音，但音量较低、让人感觉舒适（低压力）。除了标准的斯特鲁普干扰效应外，还从斯特鲁普数据中计算了两种执行控制指标——负启动和冲突适应。压力明显降低了斯特鲁普干扰效应，但它并未影响负启动，而且根本没有检测到冲突适应效应。这些发现支持了线索利用的说法。此外，首次发现压力在没有一致试验的任务中也会降低斯特鲁普干扰效应，这表明该效应并非源于压力对参与者可能针对一致试验做出的任何策略变化进行调节。
