ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2020
Interference scores have inadequate concurrent and convergent validity: Should we stop using the flanker, Simon, and spatial Stroop tasks?
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Autistic traits are associated with lower perceived executive function but not poorer executive function task performance in the general population: complementary meta-analytic evidence.Molecular autism · 2025Pooled it
- Individual differences in attention control: A meta-analysis and re-analysis of latent variable studies.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2024Pooled it
- Frontal two-electrode transcranial direct current stimulation protocols may not affect performance on a combined flanker Go/No-Go task.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- L-DOPA administration shifts the stability-flexibility balance towards attentional capture by distractors during a visual search task.Psychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Acute alcohol does not impair attentional inhibition as measured with Stroop interference scores but impairs Stroop performance.Psychopharmacology · 2021Trial
- Conflict and control in error monitoring during sustained visual discrimination.Frontiers in cognition · 2026Article
- Isolating perceptual conflict: a theoretical and methodological analysis of the Task-Irrelevant Paradigm.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Precise individual measures of inhibitory control.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Social post-error adaptations across four NBA basketball seasons.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Within-subject reliability, occasion specificity, and validity of fluctuations of the Stroop and go/no-go tasks in ecological momentary assessment.Behavior research methods · 2024Article
- The Stroop legacy: A cautionary tale on methodological issues and a proposed spatial solution.Behavior research methods · 2024Review
- Dissociation of prepotent response inhibition and interference control in problematic internet use: evidence from the Go/No-Go and Flanker tasks.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Principles for Adapting Assessments of Executive Function across Cultural Contexts.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- A comparison between different variants of the spatial Stroop task: The influence of analytic flexibility on Stroop effect estimates and reliability.Behavior research methods · 2024Article
- Differences in Selective Attention and Inhibitory Control in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder and Healthy Controls Who Do Not Engage in Sufficient Physical Activity.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Bilingual Language Experience and Its Effect on Conflict Adaptation in Reactive Inhibitory Control Tasks.Psychological science · 2023Article
- Effects of conflict in cognitive control: Evidence from mouse tracking.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2023Article
- Assessing Inhibitory Control in the Real World Is Virtually Possible: A Virtual Reality Demonstration.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- On the reliability of behavioral measures of cognitive control: retest reliability of task-inhibition effect, task-preparation effect, Stroop-like interference, and conflict adaptation effect.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Inhibition and individual differences in behavior and emotional regulation in adolescence.Psychological research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTwo-hundred one college undergraduates completed four nonverbal interference tasks (Simon, spatial Stroop, vertical Stroop, and flanker) and trait scales of self-control and impulsivity. Regression analyses tested 11 predictors of the composite interference scores derived from three of the four tasks and each task separately. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between laboratory measures of self-control, self-report measures, and the degree to which control might be related to extensive experience in activities that logically require self-control.
resultsFluid intelligence and sex were significant predictors of the composite measure, but bilingualism, music training, video gaming, mindfulness/meditation, self-control, impulsivity, SES, and physical exercise were not.
conclusionsCommon laboratory measures of inhibitory control do not correlate with self-reported measures of self-control or impulsivity and consequently appear to be measuring different constructs. Bilingualism, mindfulness/meditation, playing action video games, and music training or performance provide weak and inconsistent improvements to laboratory measures of interference control. Flanker, Simon, and spatial Stroop effects should not be used or interpreted as measures of domain-general inhibitory control.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.