Abstract
The emotional Stroop effect demonstrates that people are slower to name the ink colour of emotionally charged words than that of neutral words. Attributing this slowdown to emotionality or threat requires that the emotion and neutral words presented are equal on all extraneous variables. However, it is impossible in principle to match the two types of words on all conceivable variables. To address the problem, we presented the same set of words, polarised to be negative in one condition and neutral in another by using appropriate prime words that produced the desired valence through idiomatic two-word expressions. Across two studies, participants took longer to name the colour of the same words when they were rendered negative than when they were rendered neutral. This difference reflects a true emotional Stroop effect given the control provided for all potentially confounding variables tied to the target stimuli. The new procedure also enables researchers to calculate item-specific emotional Stroop effects for the first time.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1552-1564 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Cognition and Emotion |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2009 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Correspondence should be addressed to: Daniel Algom, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 69978, Israel. E-mail: [email protected] The research and the preparation of this report were supported by an Israel Science Foundation grant (ISF221·07) and by a grant from Tel-Aviv University Research Authority to DA. We thank Dinkar Sharma and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of the article.
Keywords
- Emotion stimulus control
- Emotional and classic Stroop effects
- Valence