Automatic activation, interference and facilitation effects in persons with aphasia and normal adult controls on experimental CRTT-R-Stroop tasks

The current study investigated the effects of several color word congruent and incongruent “Stroop” tasks, within the context of a reading comprehension test (CRTT-R-wf-Stroop), in persons with aphasia (PWA) (N=25) and normal adults (NA) (N=29). Reading times, percentage of correct responses and CRTT-R-wf scores were examined for the color words. Both groups demonstrated significant vigilance and interference effects on RT ratios reflecting costs in sustained attention, interference/suppression effects and attentional switching. Both groups showed a facilitation effect on the CRTT-R-wf score. Unlike the NA, the PWA showed no attentional effects for the number of correct response on the color adjectives