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Strategies that reduce Stroop interference

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Version 2 2023-06-12, 07:40
Version 1 2023-06-10, 02:30
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 07:40 authored by Bence Palfi, B A Parris, Anthony CollinsAnthony Collins, Zoltan DienesZoltan Dienes
A remarkable example of reducing Stroop interference is provided by the word blindness post-hypnotic suggestion (a suggestion to see words as meaningless during the Stroop task). This suggestion has been repeatedly demonstrated to halve Stroop interference when it is given to highly hypnotizable people. In order to explore how highly hypnotizable individuals manage to reduce Stroop interference when they respond to the word blindness suggestion, we tested four candidate strategies in two experiments outside of the hypnotic context. A strategy of looking away from the target words and a strategy of visual blurring demonstrated compelling evidence for substantially reducing Stroop interference in both experiments. However, the pattern of results produced by these strategies did not match those of the word blindness suggestion. Crucially, neither looking away nor visual blurring managed to speed up incongruent responses, suggesting that neither of these strategies is the likely underlying mechanism of the word blindness suggestion. Although the current results did not unravel the mystery of the word blindness suggestion, they showed that there are multiple voluntary ways through which participants can dramatically reduce Stroop interference.

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Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Royal Society Open Science

ISSN

2054-5703

Publisher

The Royal Society

Issue

3

Volume

9

Page range

1-19

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2022-02-03

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2022-02-03

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2022-02-02

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