INTERLINGUAL INTERFERENCE IN A BILINGUAL VERSION OF STROOP COLOR-WORD TASK

The present study examines the functional relations between the bilingual's two languages. These experiments attempt to determine whether the activation of one language system makes the other language system inoperative. To accomplish this, a bilingual version of the Stroop color-word task was employed. In the monolingual version, S is asked to name the ink colors of words printed on a card. The Ss find this difficult since the words themselves are the names of colors. In the bilingual version, two cards are used each containing words from one language only. Bilingual Ss name the colors of words on both cards at some point in the experiment, once in each language. Interest centers on comparing performance in the intralingual tasks with the interlingual tasks. In general, the results show that interference in the interlingual situation is in some cases as large as in the intralingual situation. The pattern, however, depends on the degree of skill in the two languages as well as stimulus similarities on the two cards. © 1969 Academic Press, Inc. All rights reserved.