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This study examined the influence of interracial interaction on the cognitive functioning of members of a dominant racial group. White participants had a brief interaction with either a White or a Black confederate, and then completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop color-naming test. Prior to the interaction, participants' racial attitudes regarding Whites and Blacks were measured via the Implicit Association Test. Racial attitudes were predictive of impairment on the Stroop test for individuals who participated in interracial interactions, but not for those who participated in same-race interactions. The results are consistent with recently proposed resource models of self-regulation and executive control in that interracial interaction, a particularly taxing exercise of self-regulation for highly prejudiced individuals, negatively affected performance on a subsequent, yet unrelated, test of executive function.

We investigated the role of cross-modal links in spatial attention in modulating the efficiency of dual-task performance. The difficulty of combining speech shadowing with a simulated driving task was modulated by the spatial location from which the speech was presented. In both single- and dual-task conditions, participants found it significantly easier to shadow one of two auditory streams when the relevant speech was presented from directly in front of them, rather than from the side. This frontal speech advantage was more pronounced when participants performed the demanding simulated driving task at the same time as shadowing than when they performed the shadowing task alone. These results demonstrate that people process auditory information more efficiently (with a lower overall dual-task decrement) when relevant auditory and visual stimuli are presented from the same, rather than different, spatial locations. These results are related to recent findings showing that there are extensive cross-modal links in spatial attention, and have clear implications for the design of better user interfaces.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the basis of Stroop interference using a color-word matching task. The objective was to determine whether interference can be eliminated and reestablished later by manipulating the involvement of the semantics system in the visual decision task. Results based on the meaning decision task and the visual decision task indicate that semantic competition is the major source of Stroop and Stroop-like interference.

Two experiments were conducted using electrophysiological recordings in an attempt to explain the reason for the response time delay in the specific index of perception and categorization, also known as the P3 wave. It was believed that the locus of interference occurred when a person attempted to achieve two tasks at the same time. Results revealed the occurrence of the dual-task interference in the psychological refractory period paradigm after the early sensory stage and prior to the motor execution stage. Also, interference occurred at the stage of processing.

In Stroop matching tasks, participants indicate whether the color of an object matches the meaning of a color word printed in color. Previously in this journal, Luo (1999) concluded that interference between two incongruent representations of the same attribute (ink color) occurs prior to the response stage. However, this conclusion was based on questionable data analysis. We suggest analyzing the data by separating 'same' and 'different' responses and then analyzing three congruency conditions within the 'different' responses: (a) congruence between word color and word meaning, (b) congruence between word color and object color, and (c) incongruence between word color, word meaning, and object color. In an experiment similar to Luo's, such an analysis revealed that responding was slowest in the first condition. This pattern of results does not fit with previous conclusions regarding this task, but rather indicates that task conflict and response competition contribute to interference. This analysis has implications for matching tasks other than the Stroop matching task.

The rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiment reported here investigated the role of conceptual interference in the attentional blink (AB). Subjects were presented with RSVP streams that contained five stimuli: Target 1, a distractor, Target 2, a second distractor, and a symbol mask. Target 1 was a green letter, Target 2 was a red letter, and the distractors were either white letters or white digits. The stimuli were presented in a font typically seen on the face of a digital watch. Thus, 'S' and 'O' were identical to '5' and '0,' respectively. This allowed us to present streams that were conceptually different even though featurally identical: The two letter targets were followed by distractors that were recognized either as '5' and '0' or as 'S' and 'O.' The AB was substantially attenuated when subjects were told the distractors were digits rather than letters. This result indicates that conceptual interference plays a role in the AB.