The effect of Spatial distance and Laterality on the Processing of Non-Monitored Words: Evidence from the gender congruency Task.

In this study the gender congruency task (a Stroop-like task) was employed to further study the processing of incongruent non-attended words. In this task, participants are shown a stick figure of either a male or a female that can appear with either a congruent ("male" for a male picture) or incongruent ("female" for a male picture) word. Participants are required to monitor the figure and respond with a button press. Words can appear either separately (Experiment 1) or superimposed on the figure (Experiment 2). Figures appeared in one of five locations (center, six visual degrees to the right or left, or three visual degrees to the right or left). Reaction time to congruent stimuli was shorter than to incongruent stimuli in all locations in both experiments. Results show that the strength of the congruency effect depended on the location of the picture, indicating that the conflict, at least in part, is identified already at fixation. In other words, although the figure and accompanying incongruent word may appear six degrees from fixation and reading the word is not part of task requirement, the word is nonetheless read, semantically processed, and generates conflict. This was also true when the word was separate from the picture, and thus it was not necessary to ever foveate the word. Finally, there was also a laterality effect whereby an incongruent word presented to the far left visual field (6 degrees) was processed faster than incongruent words at other positions.