THE EFFECTS OF BLOCKED VERSUS RANDOM PRESENTATION AND SEMANTIC RELATEDNESS OF STIMULUS WORDS ON RESPONSE TO A MODIFIED STROOP TASK AMONG SOCIAL PHOBICS

Previous studies of the modifed Stroop Color-Naming Task with social p hobics have demonstrated increased latencies for the color-naming of s ocial threat words in comparison to neutral or physical threat words. However these effects could be partially due to differences in the sem antic relatedness of the words in these various categories and/or the blocked format (i.e., all words of one type presented sequentially) in which words have been presented. To examine these issues, color-namin g latencies of individuals with social phobia to social threat, semant ically related neutral, and unrelated neutral words were examined in b oth blocked and randomly intermixed formats. Significant differences i n color-naming were found for word stimuli presented in the blocked fo rmat only. rn the blocked format, social phobics were significantly sl ower to color-name social threat words than related neutral words and significantly slower to color-name related neutral words than unrelate d neutral words. Color-naming latencies also increased across trials r egardless of word type.