Relationship between Traumatic Events and the Emotional Stroop Task in Women and Underrepresented Groups. 1. Introduction Traumatic events are frequently occurring within the population. In the literature there is a plethora of information looking at trauma-related symptoms and its relation to attentional bias. There is a significant gap in the literature when analyzing cognitive mechanisms and underrepresented groups. A cross-cultural perspective is an important factor to take into consideration when analyzing cognitive mechanisms to prevent any biases in the literature. The focus of this study is look at how attentional bias may vary in women who are minorities using a modified version of the Stroop Task, Emotional Stroop Task. 2. Background/Review …show more content…
This includes attentional bias as it has been implicated in the possible cause and maintenance of prevalent mental disorders (Van Bockstaele, Verschuere 2013). Upon obtaining a better understanding of attentional bias we can possibly disrupt its prevalence in some disorders. 2.3 Emotional Stroop Task 2.3.1 The emotional stroop task (EST) is a modified version of the Stroop task. In the EST, subjects have to name the colors in which words are printed as fast as possible while ignoring the content of the word. While the task may seem similar, the emotional stroop task focuses on engaging an emotional response that interferes with the task demand of color naming rather than creating a cognitive conflict in the incongruent word presented. Demonstrating that there is an attentional bias in coloring naming bias is found across various disorders is the most common use of the task (Williams, Mathews …show more content…
3.6 Procedure 3.6.1 The task will have contained 6 different conditions, neutral (category/combination), anxiety (tension, agitation), depression (sadness, loneliness), trauma (hunger, damage), abuse (slap, penetrate) and combat-trauma related (warlord, gunman) and positive (happy, sunshine) each containing 20 stimuli. The colors will consist of blue, green, yellow and red. 3.6.2 Participants will be asked to press the key on the keyboard with the color that was associated with that key to identify the the target word as fast as possible while ignoring the meaning of that word. A practice trial containing 6 words will be administered to ensure that the participants understood the task. A fixation cross will present on the screen (500ms) followed by a target stimulus. After the response is recorded the subject will not be told if their answer was correct or incorrect. 4 Budget 4.1 $100 dollars will be needed for a gift card incentive 4.2 $25 dollars for printing business cards to distribute 4.3 $175 dollars needed for travel to clinics and other locations to leave cards and fliers about the
Although correlation does not equal causation, we can conclude that similar cognitive processes, such as interference and automaticity, have influenced the results in our experiment. This can be expressed by the data and in identifying and saying aloud/reading a simple number compared to quantifying simple numbers. The cognitive load of reading familiar or smaller words is lower than that of counting, thus creating perchance a longer reaction time. In the experiment conducted in class as well as the one conducted by Stroop, the issue of divided attention may have been a great factor in interference or prolonged reaction time in the conditions. Psychological refractory period which states that the response to a second stimulus is slowed down by the first stimulus being processed; this can be a cause for the finding of increased reaction time when conflicting information is given. Attention may unconsciously be given to the less complex task, which is reading/identifying, and counting the main and more complex task may be interfered by the simpler stimulus. The expectation of having a longer reaction time when conducting the incongruent task was referenced back to the Stroop effect due to the similar implications of identifying and saying aloud the color presented in the print of the color descriptive word (Stroop,
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The procedure is simple. On the computer screen, twelve words are revealed one word at a time in the form of a list. After the last word, a matrix of twelve words is shown. The matrix is a table of twelve words, some of which were on the list, some of which were not. Participants in the task chose which words they believe were on the list, using free recall to select words in any order. A new list begins when participants believe they have all of the correct words from the matrix. The cycle begins again. A list of twelve words are presented, a matrix appears after the twelfth word, and participants select words according to their memory of what was on the list. There are six lists in total, with no practice trials, however there are breaks in between to express the differences in each list.
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