STROOP COLOR-WORD TASKS AS A MEASURE OF SELECTIVE ATTENTION - EFFICIENCY IN CLOSED-HEAD-INJURED PATIENTS

Deficits in attention and concentration are reported to be among the m ost common symptoms following head injury. Various underlying mechanis ms of selective attention such as excitation, inhibition, and habituat ion have been isolated in recent studies. In the present study 27 cont rol and 25 closed-head-injured (CHI) subjects were compared on four co nditions based on the Stroop color-word task (neutral, habituation, St roop, and negative priming). Cross-comparison of the different tasks e nables examination of the various components of selective attention. T he hypothesis that the control group's overall reading time would be f aster than that of the CHI group was confirmed. Also confirmed was the hypothesis that the overall reading time pattern between task conditi ons would be neutral < habituation < Stroop < negative priming. The pr ediction that the CHI patients, due to their impaired inhibitory mecha nism, would not show a slower reading time on the negative priming as compared to the Stroop condition, was confirmed as well. The theoretic al and diagnostic implications of the results are discussed.