Lemercier, C.
CLLE-LTC, University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Longer RTs in incongruent Stroop color naming have recently been explained by referring to an associative learning mechanism. Participants are supposed to incidently learn word/color association while they name their color. To evaluate this hypothesis, which stresses the role of episodic traces being created, we carried out two experiments using the Deese Roediger & MacDermott paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants either performed a color identification task (CI) or made a judgment of pleasantness (JP) on colored words presented list-by-list, with each word being printed in one particular color. JP led to better recognition performances, but false recognition on critical lures was equivalent across the two study conditions. In Experiment 2, all the study lists were presented randomly in the same global list. Words were printed in color, with all words associated with the same critical unstudied word being printed in the same color (i.e., all the words associated with “sleep” were printed in blue). Color therefore provided the only associative link between words. As expected, a decrease in false recognition was observed for the JP condition. Inversely, a significant increase in false recognition was observed in the CI condition. These results support the incidental associative learning hypothesis.