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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 5, 2026

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content

Published on: June 29, 2016

Cognitive inefficiency in depressive undergraduates: stroop processing and ERPs.

Jason W Krompinger¹, Robert F Simons

¹Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA. jkrompi@udel.edu

Biological Psychology

|December 28, 2010

Summary

Depression is linked to inefficient brain activity during executive tasks. This study found that depressed students showed earlier neural differentiation of task difficulty but overused cognitive resources, suggesting altered timing in brain function.

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 5, 2026

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content

Published on: June 29, 2016

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Clinical Psychology

Background:

Depressive symptomatology is associated with inefficient prefrontal brain region recruitment during executive function tasks.
Neuroimaging studies provide evidence for this link, but the temporal dynamics are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the time-course and electroencephalography (EEG) event-related potential (ERP) signature of inefficient executive functioning in undergraduates with depression.
To examine the relationship between neural activity, task performance, and rumination in depressed individuals.

Main Methods:

A verbal Stroop color-naming task was administered to 20 undergraduates with moderate to severe depression scores (BDI-II) and 20 low-scoring controls.
Performance measures, reaction times, and ERPs (N450, P300) were analyzed to assess group differences in cognitive processing.

Main Results:

No significant differences in performance measures were observed between groups.
Depressed participants showed earlier differentiation of congruent and incongruent trials (N450 effect) and larger P300 amplitudes, suggesting over-commitment of cognitive control resources.
The N450 congruency effect size correlated with trait rumination in depressed participants.

Conclusions:

Depressed undergraduates exhibit altered neural timing during executive tasks, with earlier neural differentiation and potentially inefficient resource allocation.
Findings support the cortical inefficiency hypothesis and highlight the importance of temporal dynamics in understanding executive dysfunction in depression.