Performance on Clinically modified Stroop Colour ...

Copyright 2003 uy tin' Illdiall Associatioli

ofClillical Psychologists (ISSN 0303-2582)

OJ Clinical Fs)'cholugy 30, { 'o, 1&::,33-39

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Performance on Clinically modified Stroop Colour Word T s as a

fu ctionof language of Stimulus Presentation and Social Background

Ra kesh Pand ey 1

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presr.!.Jl t studv e.WlIli ined the eJJect oflanguage ofstimu Ius presentation and soCial hackground I J' m/'/{r/){'lIlj un the Stroop inteljerence effect of emotion arousing words in a mochji'ed Stroop CO/all r \\'01i ; jest (JlSCW>T). In this test three sets of words (non-words, neutral l.{}ords, and emotion-arousing Ii U i'(/ \' / Clr(: presented Coitd subjects are required to name the colour of the ink in whicf) tbese wOJ'ds [de lJri Jl te(f. The present study was conducted in two phases. In the first pIJase, a gro up 0/50 biLinguni ui!d ,graduate students lI;as tested or/ MSOXrr using Hindi neutral and emotion arousing words and .beir !rnnsiiteraf English equ.ivalent, In tbe second part oftbe study, 92 subjects (46 each/rom rllral cmel u r /k/ l i baCl~grolmd) were examined on the iVISCWT using Hindi words on(v Findings rC L'caled [but 1!1II( "ioJhti [() ()((l)- compared to neutral words produced more intel/erence in mother tongue blli nor ',! Ic} ;- '(f2,1t language i.e" Eng!isb, In English, emotion-arousing words produced an inteljelencc: ej(ect a!JflOs[ silllii(I r to that o/neutral words, Asfar as the effect a/social background is concerned,findillgs indicated fj) d/ eJliOtion-arousing and neutral wurds produced similar interference t://ect ill n(rci/ subjects but lIOt i Ii lI rDcll : sld?/ects. Urban partiCipants sbowed more interference in colour-nallung emolicJ17-arousing l i't .' 'tis fl~ cCI7l[l::lJ'ed [Q botb neutral words and baseline non-words, OveraLl, the filldi Jl?s o/tbe preJ'e, l { \-: I I (I~\' s!i/Jf!,es.' t!J{,it pelionnance on MSc\IT is not influenced on(y by p.\yc!Jopat!Jolo,ofcd/c(ctors (earlier r l .'se ( : reb jlllei/nus) but also by non-psychopatbological factors (present finding). ri'miings have been r!i:iClis.\ed t il tiN ligbt of available research evidences, TlH:

rl:J y w orrJs : Siroop Interfere/lce Effec: (SIE), Colour Naming.

condition (e.g., ' re d' printed in b lue ) i:­ considered as an ind ex of Stroop interference Effect (SIE). It is g enerally argued th rt t simultaneous semanti c ac ti v atio n f the irrelevant word con te n t com p e te s fu r processing resourc es and thus pr uces interference (Jti rling, 1979). Another vie\ I is that SIE occurs due to the d i ~ rllptio n of the voluntary atten tional set vhich un individ·.nl is required to maintain in order to 'educe tlr degree of proces ing accord ed t th word content (e.g., Ha rvey, 1984). Seve rCl l other alternative formul ations are also available to explain the SIE (see M acl od, 1.99 1 fo r a review). vVhatever the reason m ay b e for crea tion of SIE, research d ata collected 0\ t r

S tr oop in trod uced the Stroop Colour­ \" a ni Te::; t (SC vVT) in 1935. In this test subjects J ( 2 ask d to name colours of the ink in which tll'2 w rcL- a re printed under three conditions uf s tj 'TI 111.1 ~ presentation. First, a serLes of non­ \ : u :-ds ( e .g ., XXXXX) printed lD different l \i!(J llt"S rl~ nre el ted followed :)v colour w(J :,d. printed in. congruent colours (e.g., word 'It'd ' p rint d in red ink), and colour words pr i t -d in inc ongruent colours (e.g., 'red' p ri Ited in blue). It has generally been observed th , t subjec L to ke more time in naming the C l· 11' \vords p rinted in incongruent colours. Tl e d i . erenct' in colour naming time between III b as line condition (colour naming non-· \' ,A d ) and Incongruent colour-word 1

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'/ Pe ader, Department of Psychology, !vi. G.

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Kashi Vidy&pilh, Varanasi (R8print Request)

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PE RFORMANCE ON CLINICALLY MODIFIED STROOP COLOUR

cognitively modulate emotional a r u s 1 (McNally et al., 1990; Mineka & Sutton, 1992; Pandey, 1995). In these clinically mod ified versions of SCWT (CMSCWT), subjec ts a r shown words of varying affective significance printed in different colours and asked t J·.ame the colour of the words while ignoring th( content.

m ore than 60 years suggest that interference e ffect observed on SCWT is a robust phenomenon and the test is more reliable than any other psychometric test (MacLeod, 1991). Several psychological factors, including s pecific psychopathological conditions, influence the performance of SCWT. For e xample, it has been found that anxiety d isorders, post-traumatic stress, panic d is order, cognitive deficits (involving a ttentional deficits) and affective psychopathology (such as alexithymia) produce stronger interference effect on colour naming tasks (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1985; McNally, Riemann & Kim, 1980; Pandey, 1995).

In general, researches sing CMSCWT have demonstrated that patients with a ff~cti . disturbances, such as high anxiety, p s t­ traumatic stress, alexithymia etc. sh ow _d greater interfeFence compared t o n orma l controls (Mineka & Sutton; 1992; Pa n dey, 1995). However, little has b ee n d one to examine the effect of language and other [1on­ psychopathological factors s uch a.. socio ­ cultural background on the perfo rmance of CMSCWT.

Various non-psychopa thological factors, some of which are related to the stimulus and th ers to the subject relevant variables, have also been found to influence the performance on SCWT. For example, stimulus set, size, trial sequence, stimulus onset asynchrony etc. are some stimulus related variables influencing th e observed SIE (see McLeod, 1991 for a review) . Likewise, language of colour-naming and w ord presentation is one of the most extensively studied subject relevant variable infl uencing SIE. For instance, when bilingual subjects were examined on SCWT with words p rinted in their dominant and :lOn-dominant language different SIE 'Nas obtained for the nvo languages (see Keatley, 1992; MacLeod, 1991 for a review) .

Examining the effect of lang uage an L psychosocial background on the interf rence effect of emotion arousing w or d s bec .line important, particularly in the conte x of CMSCWT, in as much a so me rese rchcs utilize general emotion aro usin g wnrL .. (similar to the taboo words of percepLual defense experiments) w h ic h h a e been found to produce differential aro using eff"ct dependL1g on the l a ngu age o f w rd presentation. F or ex a m p l e, se e ral researchers have. r p or ted a h i ghe r recognition thresho l d for ta b oo w rds presented in mother tongue than in for ign language (SolIe, 19 63) . Researcher s als o propose that language m ed i a t es the emotional responses. For in stance, it has been observed that an ind iv idu al' s m ore primitive emotional world is mo "e easi ly expressed in mother language a comp ared to their foreign lang u age equ iva lent (Erv in, 1964; Scherest et al. , 1968). Like w ise, it is also a widespread ob serva tio n th at I at i considered em o tion arousin g or ta boo 111 one culture may not be consid ered so in another cuI ture.

Sin ce 1935, a number of modifications h ave been d one in the standard SCWT (see M cLeod, 1991). Some examples of such m odifica tion incl u d use of emotionally arou sin g words (e.g., Pandey, 1995; Parker et al. , 1993) or wo rd~having positive or negative e m otion a l significance (e .g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1985; McN ally et al., 1990) in place of colour-words. Such modification of SCWT p e r mits the stud y - of affect related psychopathological processes such as, a t tentional bias towards threat st,imuli, intrusive cognitive activity, and ability to 34

RAKESH PANDEY

Oespi te the fact that the aforesaid empirical evidences suggest that the language of stimulus presentation and socio-cultural background of the subject mediates the effect of emotion arousing words, yet it is crucial to examine the influence of the ~f non­ psychop a thological factors on the performance of CMSCWT. It becomes important in view of the fact that the methodology adopted to test the effect o f emotion arousing words in CMSCWT differ considerably from that of perceptual defense experiments. In perceptual defense experiments, the effect of language and socio­ cultural background on reactions to emotion arousing words is usually demonstrated by time taken for overt reactions (e.g., recognition an d/ or verbal utterance) to emotion arousing w ords. On the contrary, in CMSCWT paradigm subjects are not required to respond to emotion arousing words (in fact they are asked to ignore the word content) rather they are asked to name the colour of words in which they are printed.

Test materials: Following the procedure employed by 2andey (1995), and Parker and associat e (1993), six Stroop cards were constructed from white mount-chart measuring 50 x 70 m . Each card consisted of 100 words arranged in 20 rows of five words each. The words were hand written (by professi'onal writers) "'l ith coloured sketch pens. The height of the letters was 1.5 cm. In each card, every w ord Y\ as repeated 20 times, four times in each of the five colours (red, blue, green, orange, an d black). The words were arranged ran domly except that the same word or the same colour was not repea ted in succession . Out of the six cards, two were b aseline cards consisting of five Os (i.e., 00000). The two neutral cards consisted of n eu tral-words in Hindi on one card, and its tran Ii te r" j English equivalent on the other. The English equivalent of the Hindi-neutral w rds were Polite, Clever, Tolerant, Serious, and Be utifu l. Similarly, the emotion-aro u s in g card s consisted of words in Hindi on on e ca rd , and its English equivalent (Rape, G en it a ls, Masturbation, Intercourse, and Cond om) on the other.

In the light of the foregoing discussion, the present study examines the effect of language (of stimulus presentation) and social bac kground on the interference effect of e m otion arousing words in CMSCWT parad igm . The present research has been conducted in two phases. In the first phase the effect of language and in the second phase, th e effect of rural and urban background has been examined.

P rocedure: All the subjects were tested ind i id u ally on each of the Stroop card. Subjects w ere told tha t they will be presented w i th som e card s on which some words are printed in di ffer nt colours, and their task w ill be to ign re the meaning of the words, and to name th e colour of words in which they are p rinted 1:1 lickl, and accurately as they can . Re F o n se time to colour-name the w ord s of eac h card was recorded with an electro nic stop atc h. The cards were p r es e nt d in a p re ­ experimentally determined ord er (b a e line stimuli, neutrnl card, and emo tion-aroLlsing card), so that practice effect can run cou nter to the hypothesized interference e ff ec t (Williams & Broadbent, 1986). For all subjects,

METHOD Subjects: In the first phase of the study, 50 male undergraduate bilingual (Hindi/ English) students in the age range of 18 to 24 years participated in the experiment. All the sub je cts were from middle class socio­ economic status and residing in urban area from birth. For the second phase, 92 Hindi speaking male undergraduates in the age range of 18 to 24 years (46 each from rural and urban area) were recruited. 35

PERFORMANCE ON CLINICALLY MODIFIED STROOP COLOU R

card in Hindi were presented after English cards. In the second phase of the stu'dy, r ural «nd u rba n subjects were tested on Hindi "'or , only.

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Data ob tained from the first Phase of the s tud y w er anal yzed in 2 (Language: Hindi! E ng li s h) x 3 (Stimuli: Non-words, neutral vvord s, and em otion arousing words) ANOVA w ith re peated measures on both factors. The colo ur-naming time was considered as d pendent measure. The colour-naming time data b tained from rural and urba!l subjects, fro m the seco n d phase of the stud y, w ere analyzed in a 2(background: rural, urban) x 3 (- t' .nu li typ e) fa ctorial ANOVA design with repea t d measu res on the last factor.

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Fig. 1 : Mean Colour-naming time for neu tral and emotional words in Hindi and English

and English b o th produ ce d s i g nifi can t interference effect; magnitude of this effect w as greater in Hindi as compared to En glish. It also reveals that neutral and emotion al words prod uced similar interfe rence e ffect (as compared to baseline) in English but not in Hindi. The Hindi emotion arou sin g w ords produced greater interference com p a red to neutral words. Post-hoc analysis (of colou r­ naming ti m e of H indi words ) y ielded s tatistically significan t di ffe rences be tw een: baseline (mean = 92.94 sec., SD = 24.27 sec. ) and neutral words (mean = 104.30 sec., SD = 24.76 sec; t (49) = 2.32, p