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Cognitive Processing

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01-11-2013 | Research Report

Psychological distance and reaction time in a Stroop task

Authors: Giorgio De Marchis, María del Prado Rivero Expósito, José Manuel Reales Avilés

Published in: Cognitive Processing | Issue 4/2013

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Abstract

Several sources of interference may simultaneously affect the onset of the well-known “Stroop effect.” Among them is the semantic component, which is reflected in the gradient or semantic effect. This effect consists of an increase in the amount of interference as the semantic distance between the word and the color concept decreases. Shepard (Science 237:1317–1323, 1987) relates psychological space, measured through multidimensional scaling, to mean response times. The present investigation aims to study the function relating the semantic gradient with the psychological distance between the word and the color in a Stroop task. After measuring the gradient, we obtained the subjective rating of the degree of dissimilarity of the gradient words with the concept of “color.” In our work, we show that the amount of interference in a Stroop task increases when the semantic distance from the word to the color concept decreases, and it does so exponentially. We replicated the study with different stimuli to test the robustness of the results.

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Hereafter, the word in uppercase letters refers to the name of the color, and the subindex refers to the color of the ink.

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Title: Psychological distance and reaction time in a Stroop task
Authors: Giorgio De Marchis
María del Prado Rivero Expósito
José Manuel Reales Avilés
Publication date: 01-11-2013
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Cognitive Processing / Issue 4/2013
Print ISSN: 1612-4782
Electronic ISSN: 1612-4790
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0569-x

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