Abstract
Three experiments are reported that involve responding to the meaning or position of a word (Above or Below) presented above or below a fixation point. Position and word meaning conflicted (Above/below or Below/above) or were compatible (Above/above or Below/below), and the relative frequency of conflicting trials was varied. Experiment 1 required responses to the word and its position. Compatibility and frequency had no effect in the spatial task, but interacted strongly in the word task: Compatible stimuli were processed faster when conflicting trials were rare (20% conflicting), but conflicting stimuli were processed faster when they were frequent (80% conflicting). Experiments 2 and 3 used the word task only and extended these findings to intermediate (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% conflicting) and more extreme (10%, 20%, 80%, and 90% conflicting) frequencies, respectively. The advantage for conflicting stimuli when they were frequent was taken as evidence for a strategy involving dividing attention between reported and unreported dimensions.
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The order of authorship was determined randomly. This research was supported by Grants A0682 and E4209 to Gordon Logan from the National Research Council of Canada. Jane Zbrodoff was supported by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship
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Logan, G.D., Zbrodoff, N.J. When it helps to be misled: Facilitative effects of increasing the frequency of conflicting stimuli in a Stroop-like task. Memory & Cognition 7, 166–174 (1979). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197535
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197535