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Abstract:
The present research investigated the role of consciousness
as an aspect of automaticity. We conjoined the Stroop task,
considered to demonstrate the automatic processing of words, with a
flanker task. We displayed a color patch in the center of the
visual field, and a standard Stroop stimulus presented
simultaneously either to the left or right of the target color
patch. This enabled us to examine within and between channel
interference (color-color, word-color, respectively), in addition
to the processing of the flanking word. Four right hemisphere
damaged patients who had suffered from left sided neglect,
responded manually to the color patch while ignoring the flanking
stimulus. The results indicated a large effect of flanker field
with an exaggerated effect of the flanking color in the
ipsilesional field, and yet no effect in the contralesional field.
The results concerning the flanker word were different: while there
was a marginally significant overall effect, the field the word was
presented in had no influence on performance. These patients
managed to perform a control matching task between the two flanking
dimensions and the central target. Thus, these patients displayed a
striking asymmetry between color and word processing in the
'ignored' field, with words but not colors being processed equally
well on both sides.
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