Department of Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, China.
College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2022 Jul;84(5):1635-1650. doi: 10.3758/s13414-022-02494-3. Epub 2022 May 2.
The working memory Stroop task is to name the color of a rectangular patch with keypress while holding a color word in working memory. Previous studies using this variant of the Stroop task have shown that congruency between the color patch and the color word significantly affects both color naming and working memory, with the worsening of task performance when the color patch is semantically incongruent rather than congruent with the color word. However, it remains unclear with regard to cognitive mechanisms underlying such congruency effects in the working memory Stroop task. By including a control condition among the congruent and incongruent conditions in a working memory Stroop task, the present study showed that nearly all of the working memory Stroop effect can be facilitation, and that interference, if present, is markedly smaller than facilitation in this form of the Stroop effect. There was also a critical contrast between the working memory and classic Stroop effects in terms of facilitation and interference, with larger facilitation and smaller interference in the working memory Stroop effect than in the classic Stroop effect. Moreover, working memory for a color word can be either facilitated or interfered with by the perceptual judgment (color naming) of an interposed color patch during the retention interval, depending on whether the color patch is semantically congruent or incongruent with the color word. Together, these results suggest that both facilitation and interference mechanisms can contribute to the overall congruency effects in the working memory Stroop task.
工作记忆 Stroop 任务是在工作记忆中保持一个颜色词的同时，通过按键来命名一个矩形色块的颜色。先前使用这种 Stroop 变体的研究表明，颜色块和颜色词之间的一致性会显著影响颜色命名和工作记忆，当颜色块与颜色词在语义上不一致而不是一致时，任务表现会恶化。然而，工作记忆 Stroop 任务中这种一致性效应的认知机制仍不清楚。通过在工作记忆 Stroop 任务的一致和不一致条件中包括一个控制条件，本研究表明，几乎所有的工作记忆 Stroop 效应都可以是促进作用，如果存在干扰，那么这种形式的 Stroop 效应中的干扰明显小于促进作用。在促进作用和干扰方面，工作记忆 Stroop 效应和经典 Stroop 效应之间也存在关键对比，工作记忆 Stroop 效应中的促进作用大于经典 Stroop 效应，干扰作用小于经典 Stroop 效应。此外，在保留间隔期间，插入的颜色块的知觉判断（颜色命名）可以促进或干扰对颜色词的工作记忆，具体取决于颜色块与颜色词是否在语义上一致。总之，这些结果表明，促进作用和干扰机制都可以对工作记忆 Stroop 任务中的整体一致性效应做出贡献。
