response competition

n. 1. In many learning theories, a situation in which a stimulus activates more than one response so that the response which is strongest is enacted while the others are not. 2. In cognitive psychology, the interference 
of one tendency to respond with the accuracy or speed of another response. Thus in the Stroop test it takes longer to read a word for a color if it is printed in a color different from the word as the recognition of the color of the ink interferes with reading the word, which is not the name of the color perceived.