Knowledge Bank

The current study examines the effects of interference and musical prosody through a Stroop task. Participants (n = 50) were trained to focus on the presented word or audio recording, using the good/bad adjective contrast; next, participants chose from adjective contrasts (up/down, big/small), using the task from their training phase (word meaning/audio recording) to complete the first test phase. The current study is a within-subject design, so next, participants were trained on the opposite task and then completed the other test phase. A 2 (task) X 2 (congruent/incongruent) repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant congruency effect for reaction time and accuracy. Results showed faster and more accurate responses for congruent audio recording and word pairings, but there was no difference by task. These results demonstrate a Stroop effect. Results also show that having a musical background had a significant effect on participants' reaction times to the tasks, but did not have an effect on participants’ accuracy on the tasks. There was no interaction between musicianship and congruence for reaction time or accuracy. The current study provides insight into how musical prosody is beneficial when congruent with word meaning.