Alterations in two versions of the stroop task in dementia of the Alzheimer's type

We evaluated performance of DAT patients and controls on two forms of the Stroop task Q a Picture/Word interference version and a more classic Colored Word naming Stroop. DAT subjects showed an exaggerated effect of interference in error data from the incongruent or distracting color conditions in both versions of the Stroop, compared to normals. This suggests that DAT patients have an intact response activation process !by target and distracter) but slowed or inefficient attentional selection (i.e., focusing on the target and ignoring the distracter). This allows distracting (Incongruent) stimuli to have an even greater effect than seen in normal subjects.