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The emotional counting Stroop: a task for assessing emotional interference during brain imaging

Nature Protocols volume 1, pages 293–296 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The emotional counting Stroop (ecStroop) is an emotional variant of the counting Stroop. Both of these tasks require a motor response instead of a spoken response for the purpose of minimizing head movement during functional MRI (fMRI). During this task, subjects report, by button press, the number of words (1–4) that appear on a screen, regardless of word meaning. Neutral word-control trials contain common words (e.g., 'cabinet' written three times), while interference trials contain emotional words (e.g., 'murder' written three times). The degree to which this task represents a true 'Stroop' interference task, in the sense that emotional words will increase motor-response times compared with neutral words, depends upon the subjects of the study and the words that are presented. Much research on the emotional Stroop task demonstrates that interference effects are observed in psychopathological groups in response to words that are specific to their disorder, and in normal subjects when the words are related to current concerns endorsed by them. The ecStroop task described here will produce reaction time-interference effects that are comparable to the traditional color-naming emotional Stroop. This protocol can be completed in ∼20 min per subject. The protocol described here employs neutral words and emotional words that include general-negative words, as well as words specific to combat-related trauma. However, this protocol is amenable to any emotional word lists.

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Figure 1: Examples of single trials for the three types of stimulus.
Figure 2: Words used in a study of combat veterans with and without PTSD7.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by NIMH (16259 and 01215) and NARSAD. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by NIMH (069315).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 6207 Moore Hall, Hanover, 03755, New Hampshire, USA

    Paul J Whalen

  2. Psychiatric Neuroscience Division, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    George Bush, Lisa M Shin & Scott L Rauch

  3. MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Functional and Structural Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    George Bush & Scott L Rauch

  4. Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA

    Lisa M Shin

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Correspondence to Paul J Whalen.

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Whalen, P., Bush, G., Shin, L. et al. The emotional counting Stroop: a task for assessing emotional interference during brain imaging. Nat Protoc 1, 293–296 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2006.45

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