The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Emotional Stroop Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_emotional_stroop

Family: Conflict and interference tasks

Also known as: Affective Stroop

Color-naming of emotionally valenced words; RT slowing on threat-related words indexes attentional bias to affective content.

Description

A variant of the classic Stroop in which participants name the ink color of words that vary in emotional valence (threat-related, positive, neutral). Emotional interference is measured as the slowing of color naming for emotional relative to neutral words, indexing the degree to which emotional content captures attentional resources. The task is widely used in anxiety and PTSD research, where threat-related words produce disproportionate interference. The emotional interference effect reflects automatic processing of affectively significant information.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

Color words are replaced by emotionally valenced or threat-related words; participants name the ink color while ignoring word meaning.

Manipulation

Word valence/threat relevance (disorder-specific, general threat, neutral); blocked vs. mixed presentation.

Measurement

RT slowing for threat/emotional words relative to neutral (emotional Stroop interference); accuracy.

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Threat-Related Emotional Stroop

hedvar_emotional_stroop__threat_related_emotional_stroop

Threat words (anxiety, death, danger) in different ink colors.

Threat words produce interference; canonical emotional Stroop design

Disorder-Specific Variants

hedvar_emotional_stroop__disorder_specific_variants

Tailored word sets for PTSD (trauma words), depression (loss words), addiction (substance words), eating disorders (body words).

Stimulus set tailored to specific disorder (e.g., spider phobia words); different content domain

Positive vs. Negative Emotional Stroop

hedvar_emotional_stroop__positive_vs_negative_emotional_stroop

Comparing interference from positive and negative words.

Positive stimuli alongside negative; tests valence symmetry of interference

Pictorial Emotional Stroop

hedvar_emotional_stroop__pictorial_emotional_stroop

Emotional images rather than words with color overlays.

Emotional pictures instead of words; different stimulus modality

Subliminal Emotional Stroop

hedvar_emotional_stroop__subliminal_emotional_stroop

Briefly masked emotional words to test unconscious processing.

Masked words below awareness; changes conscious access to emotional stimuli

Face-Word Emotional Stroop

hedvar_emotional_stroop__face_word_emotional_stroop

Emotional faces with incongruent emotion labels.

Emotional faces paired with color words; cross-domain emotional conflict

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Williams, J. M. G., Mathews, A., & MacLeod, C. (1996). The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology. Psychological Bulletin, 120(1), 3-24. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Compton, R. J., Banich, M. T., Mohanty, A., et al. (2003). Paying attention to emotion: An fMRI investigation of cognitive and emotional Stroop tasks. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 3(2), 81-96. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Etkin, A., Egner, T., Peraza, D. M., Kandel, E. R., & Hirsch, J. (2006). Resolving emotional conflict: A role for the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in modulating activity in the amygdala. Neuron, 51(6), 871-882. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • Phaf, R. H., & Kan, K. J. (2007). The automaticity of emotional Stroop: A meta-analysis. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38(2), 184–199. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Cisler, J. M., & Koster, E. H. (2010). Mechanisms of attentional biases toward threat in anxiety disorders. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(2), 203–216. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Algom, D., Chajut, E., & Lev, S. (2004). A rational look at the emotional Stroop phenomenon: A generic slowdown, not a Stroop effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(3), 323–338. [Updated: Dalgleish, T. (2005). Putting some feeling into it—the conceptual and empirical relationships between the classic and emotional Stroop tasks: Comment on Algom et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134(4), 585–591.] (DOI, PubMed)