The automaticity of emotional Stroop: a meta-analysis

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Experimental Psychology

Background:

• The emotional Stroop task is frequently used to study threat processing.
• An automatic bias to threat has been proposed to explain interference in this task.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the temporal dynamics of the emotional Stroop effect.
• To determine whether interference from threat words is fast and automatic or slow and controlled.

Main Methods:

• A meta-analysis of 70 published emotional Stroop studies was conducted.
• Studies were analyzed based on presentation conditions (optimal vs. suboptimal) and participant characteristics (high-anxious, patients).

Main Results:

• Emotional Stroop interference was primarily observed as a slow effect, occurring on trials subsequent to threat word presentation.
• Largest effects were found when threat words were presented in blocks, indicating slow interference.
• No significant interference was found in suboptimal (less conscious) conditions; effects were significant only in optimal conditions with high-anxious individuals and patients.

Conclusions:

• The emotional Stroop effect is more likely mediated by a slow disengagement process rather than a fast, automatic bias.
• Findings challenge the notion of a rapid, non-conscious threat bias in emotional Stroop performance.