Conflict in choice reaction time can be elicited experimentally with compatibility paradigms, such as the Stroop (Stroop 1935), Eriksen (Eriksen and Eriksen 1974), and Simon (Craft and Simon 1970) tasks. Conflict in this context is thought to result from incompatible response representations being simultaneously activated during processing. The imperative stimuli are intended to have task relevant (color of the stimulus) and task irrelevant (position of the stimulus) dimensions. Both dimensions are processed in parallel along different neural paths. These tasks are usually designed so that the irrelevant dimension has the property of being processed in a more automatic manner (prepotent response route, such as reading a colored word), and thus the irrelevant path (e.g., saying the color of the word when they are incongruent) is activated faster than the task relevant route. Therefore, when the spatial position of the stimulus is compatible with the response position, both routes are activated and lead to the correct response; however, when the stimulus appears on the opposite side of the response, both the correct and incorrect response routes are activated. The co-activation of
