Auditory Stroop tasks: a consistent Stroop effect, inconsistent effect sizes, and the relationship with perception abilityYani Qiu, Cognition and Communication Consortium, J. S. H. Taylor

RESEARCH QUESTIONSAuditory Stroop tasks: valid in measuring inhibitory control?• Reliability: a consistent Stroop effect acorss tasks?• Reliability: a consistent effect size acorss tasks?• Task impurity: confounded by perception ability?

BACKGROUND• Stroop task: inhibit word, respond to the target dimension• Stroop effect: performance affected by congruence condition

Visual Stroop: reliable [1] Auditory Stroop: unreliable? [2] • Possible reasons: 1) A small sample size; 2) Task order not counterbalanced; 3) Pitch is perceptually insalient for English speakers

METHODS• Participants: 160 healthy native English speakers, aged 18 - 40;

determined a priori [3] to achieve a statistical power of .8.

• The perceptual abilities sub-scale of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) questionnaire [4]

Total score: 6 general music perception item + 2 pitch items + 1 rhythm item Pitch-only score: 2 pitch items

References: 1 Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643–662.2 Morgan, A. L., & Brandt, J. F. (1989). An auditory Stroop effect for pitch, loudness, and time. Brain and Language, 36(4), 592-603.3 Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), aac4716.4 Müllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Musil, J., & Stewart, L. (2014). The musicality of non-musicians: an index for assessing musical sophistication in the general population. PLoS ONE, 9(2), Article e89642.

RESULTS CONTINUED• Inconsistent sizes of the Stroop effect: pitch > speed > intensity

(all ps <.01)

• Better pitch perception ability, smaller Stroop effect in the pitch Stroop. A weak negative relationship:

TAKE-HOME MESSAGES• The auditory Stroop tasks are reliable in eliciting the Stroop

effect, especially in the latency measure.• Inconsistent sizes of the effect suggest the auditory Stroop tasks are

not reliably measuring same processes.• The size of the effect in pitch Stroop is confounded by perception

ability, indicating the task impurity problem.

BLUE BLUERT

> Word: FASTSpeed: slow

?Incongruent IncongruentCongruent Congruent

exceptionally large effect size in pitch Stroop

Word: FASTSpeed: fast

Word: FASTSpeed: slow2000ms

+ 500ms

Word: FASTSpeed: fast2000ms

Word: HIGHPitch: high2000ms

+

Word: LOWPitch: high2000ms

Word: LOUDIntens: soft2000ms

500ms +

Word: SOFTIntens: SOFT 2000ms

500msTim

e

......Speed (fast): 300msSpeed (slow): 900msPitch: 213 HzIntensity: 0.015 RMS

......Pitch (high): 239 HzPitch (low): 190 HzSpeed: 213 Hz;Intensity: 0.015 RMS

...... Intensity (loud): 0.0299 RMSIntensity (soft): 0.0075 RMSSpeed: 600ms Pitch: 213 Hz

START

METHODS CONTINUED• Auditory Stroop tasks (counterbalanced): inhibit word, respond

to target acoustic dimension, as quickly and accurately as possible. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy (AC) recorded.

Speed Stroop Pitch Stroop Intensity Stroop

Stroop effect: RTInc vs. RTCon, ACCon vs. ACInc. Size: RTInc - RTCon, ACCon - ACInc

RESULTS• Consistent Stroop effect across Stroop tasks for RT, across

speed and pitch Stroop for AC (all ps <.001).

(%)

(%)

Score Pitch RT Pitch AC Other StroopTotal rs= -.13, p = .084 rs= -.15, p = .036 /

Pitch-only rs = -.19, p = .018 rs = -.13, p = .058 all ps >.176(m

s)

(ms)