1
|
Clayson PE, Shuford JL, Rast P, Baldwin SA, Weissman DH, Larson MJ. Normal congruency sequence effects in psychopathology: A behavioral and electrophysiological examination using a confound-minimized design. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14426. [PMID: 37668221 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14426] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2023] [Revised: 08/14/2023] [Accepted: 08/14/2023] [Indexed: 09/06/2023]
Abstract
Clinical studies of adaptive control emphasize the role disruptions in control play in psychopathology. However, many studies used confound-laden designs and examined only one type of psychopathology. Recent studies of event-related potentials (ERPs) suggest that robust congruency sequence effects (CSEs)-a popular index of adaptive control-appear in confound-minimized designs. Thus, the present study sought to determine whether a confound-minimized CSE paradigm could identify adaptive control dysfunction in people with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We predicted that participants with MDD and GAD would show smaller ERP CSEs and that participants with OCD would show larger ERP CSEs than healthy controls. Data from 44 people with GAD, 51 people with MDD, 31 people with OCD, and 56 healthy comparison participants revealed normal CSEs as indexed by response times (RTs) and ERPs in the psychopathology groups. Moreover, psychiatric symptoms did not moderate these CSEs. Finally, we observed a strong mean-variance relationship in RT CSEs, such that participants with stronger post-recruitment of control in mean RT scores showed the most consistent post-conflict responses (i.e., the least intraindividual variability). These findings suggest that prior findings from confound-laden tasks indicating altered CSEs in psychopathology stem from processes that are unrelated to adaptive control. Future research should employ experimental designs that isolate these processes to advance our understanding of abnormal CSEs in psychopathology.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Peter E Clayson
- Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
| | - John L Shuford
- Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
| | - Philippe Rast
- Department of Psychology, University of California - Davis, Davis, California, USA
| | - Scott A Baldwin
- Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
| | - Daniel H Weissman
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Michael J Larson
- Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
- Neuroscience Center, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Yang Q, Si S, Pourtois G. Parsing the contributions of negative affect vs. aversive motivation to cognitive control: an experimental investigation. Front Behav Neurosci 2023; 17:1209824. [PMID: 37791110 PMCID: PMC10543231 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1209824] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2023] [Accepted: 09/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Punishment is a powerful drive that fosters aversive motivation and increases negative affect. Previous studies have reported that this drive has the propensity to improve cognitive control, as shown by improved conflict processing when it is used. However, whether aversive motivation per se or negative affect eventually drives this change remains unclear because in previous work, the specific contribution of these two components could not be isolated. Methods To address this question, we conducted two experiments where we administered the confound minimized Stroop task to a large group of participants each time (N = 50 and N = 47 for Experiment 1 and 2, respectively) and manipulated punishment and feedback contingency using a factorial design. These two experiments were similar except that in the second one, we also measured awareness of feedback contingency at the subjective level. We reasoned that cognitive control would improve the most when punishment would be used, and the contingency between this motivational drive and performance would be reinforced, selectively. Results Both experiments consistently showed that negative affect increased at the subjective level when punishment was used and the feedback was contingent on task performance, with these two effects being additive. In Experiment 1, we found that when the feedback was contingent on task performance and punishment was activated, conflict processing did not improve. In Experiment 2, we found that conflict processing improved when punishment was contingent on task performance, and participants were aware of this contingency. Discussion These results suggest that aversive motivation can improve conflict processing when participants are aware of the link created between punishment and performance.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Qian Yang
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - ShuangQing Si
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - Gilles Pourtois
- Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Unconscious Conflict Adaptation of Heroin Abstainers. J Clin Med 2022; 11:jcm11216504. [DOI: 10.3390/jcm11216504] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2022] [Revised: 10/26/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Conflict adaptation is representative of the dynamic cognitive control process, which reflects the adaptability and flexibility of personal cognitive processing. Cognitive control plays an important role in drug use and relapse in addicts. Previous studies have identified conscious conflict adaptation in drug addicts. The present study examined unconscious conflict adaptation in persons with heroin use disorder using an arrow version meta-contrast masking task. The results found that persons with heroin use disorder had smaller unconscious conflict adaptation compared to the healthy control group. This may be a result of functional brain damage caused by long-term drug use.
Collapse
|
4
|
Yang Q, Xing J, Braem S, Pourtois G. The selective use of punishments on congruent versus incongruent trials in the Stroop task. Neurobiol Learn Mem 2022; 193:107654. [PMID: 35777632 DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2022.107654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2021] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Conflict adaptation refers to the dynamic modulation of conflict processing across successive trials and reflects improved cognitive control. Interestingly, aversive motivation can increase conflict adaptation, although it remains unclear through which process this modulation occurs because previous studies presented punishment feedback following suboptimal performance on both congruent and incongruent trials. According to integrative accounts of conflict monitoring and aversive motivation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, punishment feedback following slow or erroneous performance on incongruent trials in particular should lead to improved conflict adaptation. Second, selectively increasing motivation on incongruent trials should reduce the overall congruency effect. The current study sought to test both hypotheses. Specifically, we administered the confound-minimized Stroop task to a large group of participants and manipulated the position of feedback (following either congruent or incongruent trials) and aversive motivation (tied to a monetary loss or not) across different blocks. As expected, the congruency effect was found to be smaller when punishment was coupled with incongruent versus congruent trials. However, results showed that conflict adaptation was increased when punishment feedback was selectively coupled with congruent rather than incongruent trials. Together, these results suggest that aversive motivation does not uniformly improve cognitive control but this gain appears to be context dependent.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Qian Yang
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China.
| | - Jintao Xing
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - Senne Braem
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Gilles Pourtois
- Cognitive & Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Tao D, Leng Y, Huo J, Peng S, Xu J, Deng H. Effects of Core Disgust and Moral Disgust on Moral Judgment: An Event-Related Potential Study. Front Psychol 2022; 13:806784. [PMID: 35783761 PMCID: PMC9242396 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.806784] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2021] [Accepted: 03/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Core disgust is elicited by physical or chemical stimuli, while moral disgust is evoked by abstract violations of moral norms. Although previous studies have pointed out these two types of disgust can affect behavior and spatial dimensions of moral judgment, less is known about how moral and core disgust affect the temporal neural processing of moral judgment. In addition, whether moral and core disgust are only related to purity-based moral judgment or all kinds of moral judgment is still controversial. This study aimed to explore how core and moral disgust affect the neural processing of purity-based moral judgment by using affective priming and moral judgment tasks. The behavioral results showed that the severity of moral violation of non-purity ones is higher than purity ones. The event-related potentials (ERP) results mainly revealed that earlier P2 and N2 components, which represent the automatic moral processes, can differentiate neutral and two types of disgust rather than differentiating moral domain, while the later N450, frontal, and parietal LPP components, which represent the conflict detection and, later, cognitive processing can differentiate the purity and non-purity ones rather than differentiating priming type. Moreover, core and moral disgust priming mainly differed in the purity-based moral processing indexed by parietal LPP. Our findings confirmed that the disgusting effect on moral judgments can be explained within the framework of dual-process and social intuitionist models, suggesting that emotions, including core and moral disgust, played an essential role in the automatic intuition process. The later parietal LPP results strongly supported that core disgust only affected the purity-based moral judgment, fitting the primary purity hypothesis well. We show how these theories can provide novel insights into the temporal mechanisms of moral judgment.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Dan Tao
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yue Leng
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jiamin Huo
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Suhao Peng
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jing Xu
- Department of Psychology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| | - Huihua Deng
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Yang Q, Pourtois G. Modulation of Conflict Processing by Reappraisal: An Experimental Investigation. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12050564. [PMID: 35624951 PMCID: PMC9139397 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12050564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2022] [Revised: 04/11/2022] [Accepted: 04/17/2022] [Indexed: 12/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Negative affect facilitates conflict processing. Here we sought to assess whether symmetrically, its downregulation by means of reappraisal could lower it. To this end, 105 participants performed the confound-minimized Stroop task eliciting negative affect that was followed by a simple reward-related visual discrimination task. Conflict processing was induced with the former task. Half of them (experimental group) were instructed to use this second task to downregulate negative affect arising from the Stroop task. The other half (control group) did not receive these appraisal-related instructions. Group comparisons showed that negative affect and the conflict effect were similar for these two groups. However, when we added and modeled the subjective ratings related to emotion regulation, we found that conflict processing significantly improved for participants who reported using reappraisal spontaneously, and this gain occurred irrespective of negative affect. These results suggest that reappraisal can influence conflict processing but this change does not depend on negative affect.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Qian Yang
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China
- Correspondence:
| | - Gilles Pourtois
- Cognitive & Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium;
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Hu L, Feng D, Li Y, Xu J, Zheng J. The Effect of Safety Signs on the Monitoring of Conflict and Erroneous Response. Front Psychol 2022; 13:830929. [PMID: 35250774 PMCID: PMC8891479 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.830929] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2021] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
The safety sign is important in our daily life and workplace to prevent potential safety issues. However, it remains undetermined whether the safety signs would influence the cognitive control ability of the people, which serves to guide the behaviors in a goal-directed manner. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of safety signs on cognitive control by uncovering the behavioral performance and neural manifestations underlying the monitoring of conflict and error. The participants performed a flanker task after watching low- and high-hazard safety signs with the electroencephalogram (EEG) data recorded continually. The behavioral results indicated a classic congruency effect with higher accuracy rate and faster response time under a congruent condition compared to an incongruent condition. However, no hazard effect on behavioral performances was observed. The results of event-related potentials (ERPs) demonstrated a more negative N2 elicited by the incongruent trials and an increased (error-related negativity) ERN difference between the error and correct responses in the high-hazard condition compared to those in the low-hazard condition, implying that the monitoring of the conflict and error were both enhanced after watching the high-hazard safety signs. This study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between safety signs and cognitive control, and further expand the measurements that can be applied to assess the effectiveness of safety signs design.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Linfeng Hu
- School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
- College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
- Zhejiang Hantemu Valve Co., Ltd., Lishui, China
| | - Dingzhong Feng
- College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
| | - Yelang Li
- Zhejiang Hantemu Valve Co., Ltd., Lishui, China
| | - Jinwu Xu
- Zhejiang Hantemu Valve Co., Ltd., Lishui, China
| | - Jiehui Zheng
- Alibaba Business School, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
- School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
- *Correspondence: Jiehui Zheng,
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Reduced flexibility of cognitive control: reactive, but not proactive control, underpins the congruency sequence effect. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:474-484. [PMID: 33779833 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01505-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2020] [Accepted: 03/10/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The congruency sequence effect (CSE) refers to facilitated conflict processing following incongruent than congruent trials, and reflects enhanced cognitive control during conflict processing. Although this effect is mostly conceived as being reactive, proactive control can also unlock it under specific circumstances according to previous studies (e.g., when an informative cue is used). However, whether or not humans can flexibly switch between these two complementing control modes remains unclear. To address this question, 55 participants completed the confound-minimized Stroop task in different blocks where the cue about the upcoming trial's congruency was either informative or not, and orthogonally to it, the cue-stimulus interval (CSI) was either short or long. We tested if the size of the CSE could change depending on the specific combination of these two factors, which would indicate that cognitive control depends on the subtle balance between reactive and proactive control, and is therefore flexible. However, results showed that the CSE was significant and comparable across the four combinations of CSI and Cue type, suggesting that it primarily stemmed from reactive control. We discuss our results against the dual mechanism of control (DMC) framework (Braver in Trends Cogn Sci 16:106-113, 2012).
Collapse
|
9
|
Gyurkovics M, Levita L. Dynamic Adjustments of Midfrontal Control Signals in Adults and Adolescents. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:795-808. [PMID: 33026426 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Revised: 07/10/2020] [Accepted: 08/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
During task performance, our level of cognitive control is dynamically adjusted to task demands as reflected, for example, by the congruency sequence effect (CSE) in conflict tasks. Although brain areas related to cognitive control show protracted maturation across adolescence, previous studies found that adolescents show similar behavioral CSEs to adults. In the present study, we investigated whether there are age-related changes in the neural underpinnings of dynamic control adjustments using electroencephalography. Early adolescents (ages 12-14, N = 30) and young adults (ages 25-27, N = 29) completed a confound-minimized flanker task optimized for the detection of sequential control adjustments. The CSE was observed in midfrontal theta power thought to capture anterior cingulate cortex-mediated monitoring processes but was not modulated significantly by age. Adolescents, however, showed a smaller congruency effect in the power and cross-trial temporal consistency of midfrontal theta oscillations than adults. No age differences were observed in phase-based connectivity between midfrontal and lateral frontal regions in the theta band. These findings provide strong support for the role of midfrontal theta oscillations in conflict monitoring and reactive control and suggest that the cognitive system of early adolescents initially responds less reliably to the occurrence of conflict than that of adults.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mate Gyurkovics
- Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Liat Levita
- Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Kałamała P, Ociepka M, Chuderski A. ERP evidence for rapid within-trial adaptation of cognitive control during conflict resolution. Cortex 2020; 131:151-163. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2020] [Revised: 06/01/2020] [Accepted: 07/26/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
|
11
|
Choi JM, Cho YS. Impaired cognitive control during reward pursuit and punishment avoidance. MOTIVATION AND EMOTION 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s11031-020-09837-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
|