Do Emotion Words Interfere with Processing Emotion Faces? Stroop-Like Interference versus Automatic Vigilance for Negative Information

Abstract

Algom, Chajut, and Lev (2004) reported that the Emotion-Word Stroop task does not generate the cognitive processes involved in the Color-Word Stroop paradigm. An Emotion Face-Word naming task that satisfies the criteria of the Stroop paradigm is explored. Two alternative hypotheses were tested: that valence can produce Stroop-like interference or that negative information captures attention, i.e., automatic vigilance. This naming task produced facilitation and interference when the emotion words were congruent or incongruent, respectively. Vigilance effects for negative faces and negative words were also found, such that naming the faces was significantly slower when they were negative or when the superimposed words were negative.