In the reverse Stroop task, observers are instructed to ignore the ink
color in which a color word is printed (the distractor color) and to
respond to the meaning of the color word (the target). Reaction times
(RTs) are faster with congruent combinations when the ink color matches
the word than with incongruent combinations when the ink color does not
match the word. We manipulated the distracting ink color from congruent to
incongruent and measured the transition from facilitation to interference.
In Experiment 1, we confirmed that this transition could be assessed
independently from the contextual influence of particular sets of stimuli
and responses, implying that the color space in which interference and
facilitation occurs is generalizable. In Experiment 2, we obtained reverse
Stroop data for transitions between red and yellow, yellow and green,
green and blue, and blue and red, and compared them with independent
estimates of color appearance obtained by hue scaling for the same
chromaticity samples. We find that the magnitude of the reverse Stroop
effect can provide a reliable index of the similarity of color appearance
between the distracting chromaticity and the color category represented by
the target color word. Moreover, it will allow us to quantify the mapping
between the chromaticity space defined at the cone photoreceptors and a
cognitive color space defined at an advanced level of neural
processing.