Emotional Stroop task: effect of word arousal and subject anxietyon emotional interference

摘要

Inconsistent findings regarding the emotional Stroop effect in healthy subjects may be explained by con- founding effects of stimulus valence and arousal, as well asindividual differences in anxiety. We examined reaction time data in a healthy sample using the emotional Stroop task while carefully matching arousal level of positive and negative words. Independent of valence, emotional relative to neutral words elicited emotional interference, indicating that arousal determines emotional interference