The literature on interference in the Stroop Color and Word Test
covering over 50 yrs and some 400 studies
is organized and reviewed. In so doing, a set of 18 reliable empirical findings is isolated that must be captured by any successful theory of the Stroop effect
Existing theoretical positions are summarized and evaluated in view of this critical evidence and the 2 major candidate theories
elative speed of processing and automaticity of reading, are found to be wanting. It is concluded that recent theories placing the explanatory weight on parallel processing of the irrelevant and the relevant dimensions are likely to be more successful than are earlier theories attempting to locate a single bottleneck in attention