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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 24, 2026

Examining Bilingual Language Control Using the Stroop Task

Examining Bilingual Language Control Using the Stroop Task

Published on: February 26, 2020

Structural hemispheric asymmetries underlie verbal Stroop performance.

Antonino Vallesi¹, Ilaria Mazzonetto², Ettore Ambrosini³

¹Department of Neuroscience, 35128, University of Padova, Italy; San Camillo Hospital IRCCS, 30126, Venice, Italy.

Behavioural Brain Research

|August 24, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Leftward brain structure asymmetry in the visual word form area predicts better performance on verbal Stroop tasks. This suggests the visual word form area

Keywords:

FreeSurfer Hemispheric asymmetry Spatial Stroop Surface area Verbal Stroop Visual word form area

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Neuroimaging

Background:

Cognitive control tasks, like the Stroop task, often show left-lateralized brain activity.
Previous research links cognitive control to brain activation patterns, but less is known about structural asymmetries.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if leftward grey matter asymmetries predict individual differences in Stroop task performance.
To determine the specificity of these asymmetries for verbal versus spatial Stroop interference.

Main Methods:

111 healthy young adults completed verbal and spatial Stroop tasks.
T1-weighted MRI scans were acquired to estimate grey matter surface thickness and area using FreeSurfer.
Whole-brain general linear models assessed correlations between structural Laterality Indices (LI) and Stroop effects.

Main Results:

A significant correlation was found between surface area Laterality Index (LI) and verbal Stroop performance.
This correlation was located in an inferior posterior temporal cluster, overlapping the visual word form area (VWFA).
Greater leftward asymmetry in this region was associated with a smaller Stroop effect in the verbal task only.

Conclusions:

The visual word form area (VWFA) is involved in higher-level word reading processes, including task-relevant suppression.
Structural asymmetries in the VWFA may influence the ability to inhibit word reading during cognitive control tasks.
Findings suggest a role for cross-hemispheric interactions in cognitive control related to language processing.