Can automatic picture processing influence word judgments?

Two experiments were undertaken in order to evaluate the influence of automatic semantic processing of pictures on word judgments. In both studies, picture-word analogs of the Stroop task were employed. In Experiment 1, subjects were required to make a semantic category judgment about the word; in Experiment 2, they were simply to respond yes or no to whether the word was DOG. Taken together, the results of these experiments indicated that (a) perceptual factors such as lateral masking influence responding in these types of tasks and their contributions must be partialed out from the effects of semantic factors, (b) picture processing can facilitate word processing but only in a restricted set of circumstances, and (c) background pictures incompatible with the correct response can interfere with word judgments. The facilitation observed was attributed to the effects automatic picture processing has on an initial input process, while the interference appears to arise at a response selection and execution stage. Further, the results suggest that the semantic nature of automatic picture processing is at least somewhat different from that of automatic word processing.