WHY DOES BLUE HAMPER THE NAMING OF RED - COLOR COLOR INTERFERENCE ANDTHE ROLE OF LOCATIONAL (UN)CERTAINTY

In the color color variant of the Stroop task, the naming of a target color is hampered by an incongruent distractor color when the position of the target varies from trial to trial (locational uncertainty), wh ereas no, or little interference is obtained when the target is presen ted at a fixed position in the display (locational certainty). The lat ter finding has been explained in terms of a narrow input selection wi ndow that prevents any processing of the distractor color. This accoun t was tested in an experiment in which - under conditions of locationa l certainty - a target color was accompanied by either an incongruent color or an incongruent color word. The results show that color naming was not hampered by the incongruent color, whereas substantial interf erence effects were induced by the incongruent word. This finding indi cates that (a) also the distractor color must have been processed, and (b) this processing is not a sufficient condition for interference to obtain. An alternative account of color -color interference is presen ted in which it is assumed that. under conditions of locational uncert ainty, the distractor color is - erroneously - selected for naming.