A new emotional Stroop-like task: Application to the Down syndrome population

The present study proposed to test the applicability of a new emotional Stroop-like paradigm among 49 adults with Down syndrome (DS), matched with typically developing children on gender and receptive vocabulary. Stimuli with neutral and emotional content were presented in two identical computerized tasks. This experimental design allowed comparisons of inhibition performance according to the nature of the material. Main results showed that the DS group processed the emotional material more poorly than the control group in the inhibition condition, whereas all participants performed near or at ceiling in the control condition. Regarding the response latencies, both groups processed emotional material slower than the neutral material. The DS participants did not take more time to respond than their controls, but they presented a distinct response latency pattern during the task: while the control group kept their response times constant, the DS group showed an improvement during the task.