MAPPING SYMBOLS TO RESPONSE MODALITIES - INTERFERENCE EFFECTS ON STROOP-LIKE TASKS

Response compatibility effects were assessed with a Stroop-like task w hich involved arrow and word stimuli. The subjects were required to re spond to one stimulus-an arrow (e.g., -->) or a word (e.g., left)-and ignore the other. It was shown that response compatibility played a si gnificant role in generating Stroop-like interference. Robust interfer ence effects were observed when the subjects responded manually to wor d stimuli (ignoring irrelevant arrows) and when they responded vocally to arrow stimuli (ignoring irrelevant words). Smaller interference ef fects were observed under response-compatible conditions, namely, resp onding manually to arrows and vocally to words. In the second experime nt, within-dimension displays (e.g., arrow-arrow or word-word displays ) yielded a pattern of interference that did not interact with respons e modality. These findings indicate that both stimulus-response compat ibility effects and target-distracter similarity are crucial for under standing Stroop-Like interference.