Comparison of Inhibition in Two Timed Reaction Tasks

This article published in the Journal of Psychology compares the inhibition in two timed reaction tasks, the color and emotion Stroop tasks. The aim of the research was to examine the cross-task consistency of the ability to inhibit the processing of irrelevant information. The article provides details about the research design, predictions, and results.

Running head: COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
Question 1
a) Comparison of inhibition in two times reaction tasks.
b) D. Lisa Cothran and Randy Larson.
c) Journal is “J Psychol”, Year of publication is July 2008, the Volume number is 142 and
issue 4, Page numbers are 373-385.
Question 2
a) Aim of the present research is examining the cross-task consistency of the ability to
inhibit the processing of irrelevant information.
b) A color stroop task has color words presented in a congruent and incongruent format,
where the participants are instructed to indicate the color while ignoring the word. (Bugg,
& Hutchison, 2013) Similarly, in case of emotion Stroop task, emotive words are
presented in varying colors and same instructions as that of the color task are provided.
(Kiyonaga & Egner, 2014).
The research was conducted to examine if the inhibitory processing taking place
in emotion Stroop and color Stroop are equivalent functionally.
c) The predictions were-
 The traditional Stroop effects.
 Correlation of interference scores.
 Physiological reactivity greater in experimental condition.
Question 3
a) 32 undergraduate students.
b) An iMac computer and Superlab pro 1.75 was used for presentation of stimuli.
Instructions, as given to the participants, were to indicate the color of the ink as fast as

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
possible. Each block of the stimuli was separated by a “+” of about 350-ms in the center
of the screen (blank). Rest for 2.5 minutes was provided after each block.
Color word Stroop task had red, green, blue and yellow presented on a completely
black background. Each block had 60 trials where the stimuli presentation was
randomized with 15 repetitions of each color. Three experiments; blocks were designed,
where, color patches were presented in block 1, incongruent word and color pairs were
presented in block 2 and congruent word and color pairs were present in block 3.
Emotion Stroop task- Same colors on a white background were presented. Randomization
and repetition were same as color stroop. 20 negatively valenced words, 20 neutral
words, 20 positively valenced words and 20 neutral words were presented in block 1, 2, 3
and 4 respectively. Each color and word were presented an equal number of times with
each word presented in 3 colors of the 4, across the blocks.
c) The participants were randomly assigned to each of the two experimental conditions.
Counterbalancing was used while presenting the Stroop tasks. Each stroop task had fixed
presentation of blocks and in each block, stimuli were presented in a randomized manner.
The participants were asked to sit down with pressure cuffs attached to their non-
dominant arm and complete a non-related filler task. The baseline physiological data
were recorded. Physiological data were recorded 1.5 min into each block of the first
reaction time (RT) task. Same procedure for second RT task was followed. Finally, after
a filler task, the baseline physiological data was recorded.
Question 4

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
a) Emotional stroop task- A comparison of neutral and negative word conditions shows, the
latter has lower error percentage, t(30)=3.5, p<0.001; and larger RTs, t(30)=-3.60,
p<0.001. Therefore the effect of negative emotion is evident.
Color stroop task- A comparison of incongruent and congruent tasks show that
incongruent condition has larger RTs, t(30)=9.4, p<0.001, suggesting stroop effect. The
incongruent condition also had longer RTs than color patch condition, t(30)=4.4,
p<0.001. No significant difference in terms of error percentage was found.
b) Physiological reactivity as defined by Cannon in 1932 is the bodily changes that occur as
a response to stressful stimuli. The major features of physiological reactivity include
increased heart rate and blood pressure (Badour & Feldner, 2013)
Neutral words had significantly more physiological reactivity in comparison to
negative words, DBP t(29)= -2.49, p<0.01; HR t(29)=-2.54, p<0.01 in emotion stroop
task. Color stroop task has shown significantly greater reactivity for the incongruent task
in comparison to color patch task, t(29)=1.89, p<0.05.Across the two tasks, color stroop
has shown more physiological reactivity in comparison to emotion stroop.
Question 5
a) Eide et al. had examined test-retest reliability of emotion stroop tasks in 2002, the
equivalence of inhibitory processing occurring in the two stroop tasks was speculated,
however, that remained untested. It has been obtained from the present study that the
speculation is false.
b) Future research should try exploring the reactivity relationship among more similar tasks.
Similar designs of IP tests might be more beneficial in terms of correlation, for instance
examining IP across Affective Simeon Task and Color Stroop Task.

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
c) Case studies aim at analyzing certain issues that lie within the limitations of a specific
situation, environment or organization (Soy, 2015). Explanatory case studies focus
majorly on situations occurring within a real-life context, for instance, investigating
reasons behind the global economic crisis. Descriptive case studies analyze the various
sequence that takes place a while after some interpersonal events have occurred, for
instance, a case study of McDonald's in Indonesia to find out its impact on the amplifying
levels of multiculturalism on various marketing practices. Exploratory case studies have
the aim of answering questions like ‘what’ or ‘who’ and data collection questionnaires,
experiments, interviews, for instance, conducting a study to find differences in teaching
practices between public and private schools in Bloomington, USA ( Thomas, 2015).
Advantages of this method are that data collection and analysis is usually within the
situational context, data analysis can integrate both qualitative and quantitative analysis
methods, capturing the various real-life complexities for in-depth studies are possible
(Yin, 2017). Disadvantages of this method are that rigor may be lacking, numerous
challenges can be associated with data analysis, major generalizations based on the
findings cannot be made (Liamputtong, 2013).
Question 6
I would rate the abstract 3, because, the given abstract has a short summary of the article
and also contains some of the key points like the purpose of the study and results of the study
but does not have the research design or hypothesis of the study. However, the content of the
research is understandable from the given abstract.
Question 7

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
 Journal: “Cothran, D. L., & Larsen, R. (2008). Comparison of inhibition in two timed
reaction tasks: The color and emotion Stroop tasks. The Journal of Psychology, 142(4),
373-385.”
 Coursebook: “Zimbardo, P.G., Johnson, R.L., & McCann, V. (2009). Psychology: Core
concepts (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. - (PNIE Edition).”
 Another journal: “Bugg, J. M., & Hutchison, K. A. (2013). Converging evidence for
control of color–word Stroop interference at the item level. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39(2), 433.”

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COMPARISON OF INHIBITION IN TWO TIMED REACTION TASKS
References
Badour, C. L., & Feldner, M. T. (2013). Trauma-related reactivity and regulation of emotion:
Associations with posttraumatic stress symptoms. Journal of behavior therapy and
experimental psychiatry, 44(1), 69-76.
Bugg, J. M., & Hutchison, K. A. (2013). Converging evidence for control of color–word Stroop
interference at the item level. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception
and Performance, 39(2), 433.
Cothran, D. L., & Larsen, R. (2008). Comparison of inhibition in two timed reaction tasks: The
color and emotion Stroop tasks. The Journal of Psychology, 142(4), 373-385.
Kiyonaga, A., & Egner, T. (2014). The working memory Stroop effect: when internal
representations clash with external stimuli. Psychological science, 25(8), 1619-1629.
Liamputtong, P. (2013). Qualitative research methods.
Soy, S. (2015). The case study as a research method.
Yin, R. K. (2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Sage
publications.
Thomas, G. (2015). How to do your case study. Sage.