“Reverse” Stroop Effect in the Performance of Schizophrenics

Abstract

The hypothesis was tested that a group of 30 schizophrenic in contrast to a control group of 35 non-schizophrenic patients would demonstrate substantial and significantly more “Reverse” interference in reading incongruent word-color combinations on the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test. Results supported the hypothesis. A “reverse” interference of 19% and of 9% was observed in the groups' performances, respectively. The group performance differences were much larger on both the classical “Stroop” and “Reverse” interference tasks than on corresponding non-interference tasks. But these interactions were not statistically significant. Measures of absolute and proportional performance decrements on the interference tasks showed no correlations between “Stroop” and “Reverse” interference. Issues discussed included impaired selective attention in schizophrenics' performance, the unexpected high “Reverse” effect in control data and the psychodiagnostic applications of reverse interference.