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Updated: Jun 14, 2026
Examining Bilingual Language Control Using the Stroop Task
Published on: February 26, 2020
P300 and the stroop effect in overweight minority adolescents
Lance O Bauer1, Richard F Kaplan, Victor M Hesselbrock
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT 06030-2103, USA. bauer@psychiatry.uchc.edu
Aim:
The goal was to examine the relationship between a risk factor for poor cognitive control and a health outcome of growing public significance--an excess body mass--among adolescents.
Methods:
To this end, 109 adolescents aged 14-20 years were recruited and assigned to 1 of 4 groups defined by the crossing of the absence versus presence of a parental history (PH) of externalizing disorders with a body mass index (BMI) percentile (BMIP) < 85 versus > or = 85. The principal measure estimating cognitive control was the P300 event-related electroencephalographic response recorded during the Stroop task.
Results:
The analyses revealed a synergistic interaction between BMIP rank, PH and trial type: the increase in P300 latency and the decrease in response accuracy, elicited by the presence of interfering information, were markedly greater in high-BMIP subjects with a PH of externalizing disorders than in the other subject groups. Analyses of a later component, the N450, previously associated with the Stroop interference effect, revealed no effect of BMI or PH.
Conclusions:
We conclude that subjects with both a PH of externalizing disorders and an excess BMI constitute a unique group that is less able to resolve cognitive conflict than others. The excessive delay in P300 evoked by conflicting response demands in these subjects may be a marker of a heritable factor that increases risk for both excess body mass and substance use disorders.
