Asymmetry of congruency effects in spatial Stroop tasks can be eliminated

Three experiments examined whether asymmetry in interference can be eliminated in spatial Stroop tasks. In Experiment 1, responding to arrows or location words written in Chinese and to their locations created spatial Stroop effects of similar sizes. In Experiment 2, responding to a location word embedded in an outline drawing of arrow did not yield a spatial Stroop effect, but responding to the arrow's direction did yield an effect. In Experiment 3, responding to a location word flanked by an arrow and to the arrow rather than the word produced similar sizes of spatial Stroop effects. These results show that asymmetry in spatial Stroop interference can be eliminated in some situations. Although aspects of the results are consistent with predictions of translation and dimensional overlap models, they are in closest agreement overall with an account in terms of the relative strengths of the relevant and irrelevant stimulus–response associations.

► We tested whether interference asymmetry can be eliminated in spatial Stroop tasks.
► Results showed that the asymmetry in interference can be eliminated in some cases.
► The results are in closest agreement with a relative association strength account.