Lateralized Stroop Interference Effect With Chinese Characters-1

Previous studies show Stroop effect is stronger in the right visual field. However, (1) whether the lateralization patterns of two aspects of Stroop effects, facilitation and inhibition, for native Chinese speakers are similar to each other, and (2) whether secondary interference tasks modulate Stroop effect as in the studies about the lateralized Whorf effect, are remaining open questions. We show in the present study visual field asymmetry of Stroop interference was caused mainly by the lateralized facilitation effect, but not by the bilateral inhibition effect. Moreover, contrary to the robustness of verbal interference task in studies on the lateralized Whorf effect, the magnitude of the visual field asymmetry was not modulated by the secondary verbal interference task. This study further consolidates the idea that language information and color naming interact more strongly in the left hemisphere, which sheds light on the debate of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis based on Chinese characters.