The Emotional Stroop Effect Is Modulated by the Biological Salience and Motivational Intensity Inherent in Stimuli

Prior research has found significant emotional Stroop effects for negative stimuli, but the results have been inconsistent for positive stimuli. Combining an evolutionary perspective of emotion with the motivational dimensional model of affect, we speculated that the emotional Stroop effect of a stimulus may be influenced by the biological salience and inherent motivational intensity of the stimulus. In the present study, we examined this issue with two experiments. The results indicated that both low- and high-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli produced a robust emotional Stroop effect; however, the high-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli produced a stronger emotional Stroop effect than the low-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli. Regarding positive stimuli, only the high-approach-motivated positive stimuli produced the emotional Stroop effect, unlike the low-approach-motivation positive stimuli. These findings suggest that the emotional Stroop effect is modulated by the biological salience of stimuli and by the motivational intensity inherent in the stimuli. Biological salience and motivational intensity play an additive effect in the emotional Stroop effect.