The Stroop effect is widely considered to be compelling evidence that skill
ed readers cannot prevent themselves from reading the irrelevant word or ev
en delay such processing. In contrast, several reports indicate that the St
roop effect can be eliminated by various simple manipulations. These report
s have been criticized on several grounds, among them that the baseline con
dition is suspect. These criticisms are addressed by showing that when (1)
a neutral baseline is replaced by congruent trials, (2) single letter cuing
and coloring manipulations are combined, (3) attentional window conditions
are blocked, and (4) the congruent/incongruent trial ratio is 20/80, the S
troop effect is eliminated. A second major finding is that despite no Stroo
p effect, negative priming is observed, consistent with the hypothesis that
a distinct but delayed perceptual act processes the word. The default set
may be to process to the highest level (semantics), but these reading proce
sses are (contextually) controlled rather than ballistic.