Evidence against conflict monitoring and adaptation: An updated review

Evidence for conflict monitoring during speech recognition in noise

During difficult tasks, conflict can benefit performance on a subsequent trial. One theory for such performance adjustments is that people monitor for conflict and reactively engage cognitive control. This hypothesis has been challenged because tasks that control for associative learning do not show such "cognitive control" effects. The current study experimentally controlled associative learning by presenting a novel stimulus on every trial of a picture-speech conflict task and found that performance adjustments still occur. Thirty-one healthy young adults listened to and repeated words presented in background noise while viewing pictures that were congruent or incongruent (i.e., phonological neighbors) with the word. Following conflict, participants had higher word recognition (+17% points) on incongruent but not congruent trials. This result was not attributable to posterror effects nor a speed-accuracy trade-off. An analysis of erroneous responses showed that participants made more phonologically related errors than nonrelated errors only on incongruent trials, demonstrating elevated phonological conflict when the picture was a neighbor of the target word. Additionally, postconflict improvements appear to be due to better resolution of phonological conflict in the mental lexicon rather than decreased attention to the picture or increased attention to the speech signal. Our findings provide new evidence for conflict monitoring and suggest that cognitive control helps resolve phonological conflict during speech recognition in noise.

Proactive response preparation contributes to contingency learning: novel evidence from force-sensitive keyboards

Contingency learning can involve learning that the identity of one stimulus in a sequence predicts the identity of the next stimulus. It remains unclear, however, whether such learning speeds responses to the next stimulus only by reducing the threshold for triggering the expected response after stimulus onset or also by preparing the expected response before stimulus onset. To distinguish between these competing accounts, we manipulated the probabilities with which each of two prime arrows (Left and Right) were followed by each of two probe arrows (Up and Down) in a prime-probe task while using force-sensitive keyboards to monitor sub-threshold finger force. Consistent with the response preparation account, two experiments revealed greater force just before probe onset on the response key corresponding to the direction in which the probe was more (versus less) likely to point (e.g., Up vs. Down). Furthermore, mirroring sequential contingency effects in behavior, this pre-probe force effect vanished after a single low-probability trial. These findings favor the response preparation account over the threshold only account. They also suggest the possibility that contingency learning in our tasks indexes trial-by-trial expectations regarding the utility of the prime for predicting the upcoming probe.

A spatial version of the Stroop task for examining proactive and reactive control independently from non-conflict processes

Conflict-induced control refers to humans' ability to regulate attention in the processing of target information (e.g., the color of a word in the color-word Stroop task) based on experience with conflict created by distracting information (e.g., an incongruent color word), and to do so either in a proactive (preparatory) or a reactive (stimulus-driven) fashion. Interest in conflict-induced control has grown recently, as has the awareness that effects attributed to those processes might be affected by conflict-unrelated processes (e.g., the learning of stimulus-response associations). This awareness has resulted in the recommendation to move away from traditional interference paradigms with small stimulus/response sets and towards paradigms with larger sets (at least four targets, distractors, and responses), paradigms that allow better control of non-conflict processes. Using larger sets, however, is not always feasible. Doing so in the Stroop task, for example, would require either multiple arbitrary responses that are difficult for participants to learn (e.g., manual responses to colors) or non-arbitrary responses that can be difficult for researchers to collect (e.g., vocal responses in online experiments). Here, we present a spatial version of the Stroop task that solves many of those problems. In this task, participants respond to one of six directions indicated by an arrow, each requiring a specific, non-arbitrary manual response, while ignoring the location where the arrow is displayed. We illustrate the usefulness of this task by showing the results of two experiments in which evidence for proactive and reactive control was obtained while controlling for the impact of non-conflict processes.

The role of spatial uncertainty in the context-specific proportion congruency effect

The prime-probe version of the Stroop task has been predominantly used to demonstrate the context-specific proportion congruency (CSPC) effect. In this version, the location of the color is not known until its presentation, creating a spatial uncertainty for the color dimension. We propose that spatial uncertainty plays an important role in observing the CSPC effect. In this study, we investigated the role of spatial uncertainty with two experiments. In Experiment 1 (N = 53), we used a spatially separated version of the Stroop task having spatial uncertainty on the color dimension, and observed a significant CSPC effect. For Experiment 2, we conducted a preregistered prime-probe CSPC experiment with a considerably large sample (N = 128), eliminating the uncertainty of only the color dimension in one condition and both the color and the word dimensions in the other. Results showed that the CSPC effect was not observed in the first condition, while it was very small yet significant in the second condition. The Bayesian approach confirmed frequentist analyses of Experiment 1 and the first condition of Experiment 2. However, in the second condition of Experiment 2, there was no evidence regarding the existence of the CSPC effect. These findings support our claim that the spatial uncertainty of the color dimension, inherent in the prime-probe version Stroop task, contributed to the CSPC effect.

Cognitive control controls the effect of irrelevant stimulus-response learning

Research has established that two cognitive processes, cognitive control and irrelevant stimulus-response (S-R) learning, may underlie the proportion congruency effect, which refers to the findings that the size of interference effects (e.g., the Stroop, Simon, or Eriksen flanker effect) reduces with increasing the proportion of incongruent trials. Further studies have begun to investigate the interaction between these two cognitive processes, which not only provide more plausible accounts for empirical data, but also advance theories. The present study set out to investigate whether cognitive control can modulate the effect of irrelevant S-R learning. In two experiments, we combined a color-letter contingency task, in which we manipulated the contingencies (low vs. high) of irrelevant S-R associations, with a color-Chinese character Stroop task, in which we manipulated the ratio of neutral to incongruent trials (mostly neutral (MN) versus mostly incongruent (MI)). Experiment 1 showed a proportion neutral effect (the Stroop effect was smaller in the MI than in the MN condition), suggesting changes in control demand. Critically, the contingency effect (faster responses in the high- than in the low-contingency condition) reduced in the MI than in the MN condition. Experiment 2 (preregistered) increased the number of Chinese characters to exclude a familiarity account for the proportion neutral effect, which replicated the findings of Experiment 1. These results suggest that cognitive control induced in the Stroop task transferred to the contingency task and modulated the contingency effect. Thus, this study provides clear evidence that cognitive control can modulate the effect of irrelevant S-R learning.

Self-referential information optimizes conflict adaptation

Self-referential information has been shown to optimize behavioral performance in various domains. The present study examined the role of self-referential information as a cue to enhance cognitive control and, more specifically, conflict adaptation. A revised color Stroop task was used with stimuli consisting of possessive pronouns and color words (e.g., "my green"). The results showed that self-referential information reduced conflict adaptation (the congruency sequence effect at trial level in Experiment 1, at block level in Experiment 2, and the list-wide proportion congruency effect at block level in Experiment 3). These findings suggest that self-referential information can act as a cue to optimize conflict adaptation. This study highlights the role of self-referential information in cognitive control adjustments.

No pupillometric evidence for effortful proactive control in the proportion-congruent Stroop paradigm

Cognitive control is the ability to allocate attention away from stimuli that are irrelevant to achieving a goal, towards stimuli that are. When conflict is anticipated, attention is biased in a global, top-down manner called proactive control and this effortful type of cognitive control is engaged before stimulus onset. The list-wise congruency proportion (LWPC) effect, where the Stroop congruency effect is reduced when there are more incongruent than congruent trials compared to vice versa, has been viewed as one of the prime signatures of this type of cognitive control. However, there has been recent debate about the extent to which this effect should be attributed to proactive control instead of alternative explanations such as simpler associative learning or reactive control. Thus, by using pupillometry (i.e., an indicator of cognitive effort), the present study investigated the extent to which LWPC effects result from effortful proactive control. Experiment 1 employed a classic proportion congruency manipulation, while Experiment 2 replaced congruent trials with neutral trials to control for potential effects of associative learning. While in line with past findings, proportion congruency effects were obtained in response times of both experiments and pupillometry showed both proportion congruency and Stroop effects after stimulus onset, no differences in pupil sizes were found during the preparatory phase. Therefore, these results do not support the idea that the observed LWPC effects are due to participants engaging in effortful proactive control.

Modal and amodal cognition: an overarching principle in various domains of psychology

Accounting for how the human mind represents the internal and external world is a crucial feature of many theories of human cognition. Central to this question is the distinction between modal as opposed to amodal representational formats. It has often been assumed that one but not both of these two types of representations underlie processing in specific domains of cognition (e.g., perception, mental imagery, and language). However, in this paper, we suggest that both formats play a major role in most cognitive domains. We believe that a comprehensive theory of cognition requires a solid understanding of these representational formats and their functional roles within and across different domains of cognition, the developmental trajectory of these representational formats, and their role in dysfunctional behavior. Here we sketch such an overarching perspective that brings together research from diverse subdisciplines of psychology on modal and amodal representational formats so as to unravel their functional principles and their interactions.

Conflict detection and resolution in macaque frontal eye fields

Stimulus-induced conflicts in decision-making tasks produce both behavioral and neuronal congruency effects. However, how and when conflicts are detected and resolved at the neuronal level remains largely unclear. To address these issues, we recorded from single neurons in the frontal eye fields of two macaques performing a conflict task. Although the temporal dynamics of the neuronal congruency effects are independent of the specific task rules, they are substantially different in target- and distractor-encoding neurons. Conflicts were detected ~100 ms after the conflict-inducing cue (20-30 ms after the visual response), which is much faster than predicted based on human EEG results. This suggests that conflict detection relies on a fast mechanism in frontal eye fields. Resolving the conflict at the neuronal level, however, requires between <400 ms to ~1000 ms, and shows profound interindividual differences and depends on task rules, indicating that it is a more complex and top-down driven process. Our findings illuminate the neuronal mechanisms underlying decision-making when a conflict is present, a crucial cognitive process playing a role in basic survival and high-level cognitive functions.

Exploring behavioral adjustments of proportion congruency manipulations in an Eriksen flanker task with visual and auditory distractor modalities

The present study investigated global behavioral adaptation effects to conflict arising from different distractor modalities. Three experiments were conducted using an Eriksen flanker paradigm with constant visual targets, but randomly varying auditory or visual distractors. In Experiment 1, the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials was varied for both distractor modalities, whereas in Experiments 2A and 2B, this proportion congruency (PC) manipulation was applied to trials with one distractor modality (inducer) to test potential behavioral transfer effects to trials with the other distractor modality (diagnostic). In all experiments, mean proportion congruency effects (PCEs) were present in trials with a PC manipulation, but there was no evidence of transfer to diagnostic trials in Experiments 2A and 2B. Distributional analyses (delta plots) provided further evidence for distractor modality-specific global behavioral adaptations by showing differences in the slope of delta plots with visual but not auditory distractors when increasing the ratio of congruent trials. Thus, it is suggested that distractor modalities constrain global behavioral adaptation effects due to the learning of modality-specific memory traces (e.g., distractor-target associations) and/or the modality-specific cognitive control processes (e.g., suppression of modality-specific distractor-based activation). Moreover, additional analyses revealed partial transfer of the congruency sequence effect across trials with different distractor modalities suggesting that distractor modality may differentially affect local and global behavioral adaptations.

A neural network model of mathematics anxiety: The role of attention

Anxiety about performing numerical calculations is becoming an increasingly important issue. Termed mathematics anxiety, this condition negatively impacts performance in numerical tasks which can affect education outcomes and future employment. The disruption account proposes poor performance is due to anxiety disrupting limited attentional and inhibitory resources leaving fewer cognitive resources for the current task. This study provides the first neural network model of math anxiety. The model simulates performance in two commonly-used tasks related to math anxiety: the numerical Stroop and symbolic number comparison. Different model modifications were used to simulate high and low math-anxious conditions by modifying attentional processes and learning; these model modifications address different theories of math anxiety. The model simulations suggest that math anxiety is associated with reduced attention to numerical stimuli. These results are consistent with the disruption account and the attentional control theory where anxiety decreases goal-directed attention and increases stimulus-driven attention.

Impaired proactive cognitive control in Parkinson's disease

Adaptive control has been studied in Parkinson's disease mainly in the context of proactive control and with mixed results. We compared reactive- and proactive control in 30 participants with Parkinson's disease to 30 age matched healthy control participants. The electroencephalographic activity of the participants was recorded over 128 channels while they performed a numerical Stroop task, in which we controlled for confounding stimulus-response learning. We assessed effects of reactive- and proactive control on reaction time-, accuracy- and electroencephalographic time-frequency data. Behavioural results show distinct impairments of proactive- and reactive control in participants with Parkinson's disease, when tested on their usual medication. Compared to healthy control participants, participants with Parkinson's disease were impaired in their ability to adapt cognitive control proactively and were less effective to resolve conflict using reactive control. Successful reactive and proactive control in the healthy control group was accompanied by a reduced conflict effect between congruent and incongruent items in midline-frontal theta power. Our findings provide evidence for a general impairment of proactive control in Parkinson's disease and highlight the importance of controlling for the effects of S-R learning when studying adaptive control. Evidence concerning reactive control was inconclusive, but we found that participants with Parkinson's disease were less effective than healthy control participants in resolving conflict during the reactive control task.

Proactive control affects task conflict beyond contingency learning

Various models of the Stroop task suggest that proactive task control adaptation accounts for the modulation of task conflict in different conditions of the Stroop task, for example, when task conflict is very frequent or very infrequent. Other researchers have argued that a contingency learning of colour-word associations is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. In this work, we constructed a design that controls for confounds that are suspected to rule out the role of control adaptation in the Stroop task. We focused on one type of conflict-task conflict and tested whether colour-naming of neutral-words (where task conflict is present) differed from colour-naming of neutral-symbols (where task conflict is not present) in four different conditions: mostly words-congruent, mostly words-incongruent, mostly words-neutral, or mostly non-words-shape. Importantly, the conditions used for the task conflict marker were identical in all four conditions. We found that the marker of task conflict (reaction time [RT] for neutral-words > RT for neutral-symbols) was significant in the mostly non-words-shape condition, where proactive task control is relaxed, but not in the mostly words conditions, where proactive task control is activated, with no difference between these three words conditions. These findings suggest that control adaptation is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. The relevance of the results to the current literature is discussed and the results are explained in light of the proactive control-task conflict (PC-TC) model.

On the relationship between emotions and cognitive control: Evidence from an observational study on emotional priming Stroop task

Evidence is discordant regarding how emotional processing and cognitive control interact to shape behavior. This observational study sought to examine this interaction by looking at the distinction between proactive and reactive modes of control and how they relate to emotional processing. Seventy-four healthy participants performed an emotional priming Stroop task. On each trial, target stimuli of a spatial Stroop task were preceded by sad or neutral facial expressions, providing two emotional conditions. To manipulate the requirement of both proactive and reactive control, the proportion of congruent trials (PC) was varied at the list-wide (LWPC) and item-specific (ISPC) levels, respectively. We found that sad priming led to behavioral costs only in trials with low proactive and reactive cognitive control demands. Our findings suggest that emotional processing affects cognitive processes other than cognitive control in the Stroop task. Moreover, both proactive and reactive control modes seem effective in overcoming emotional interference of priming stimuli.

Action-rule-based cognitive control enables efficient execution of stimulus-response conflict tasks: a model validation of Simon task performance

Introduction

The human brain can flexibly modify behavioral rules to optimize task performance (speed and accuracy) by minimizing cognitive load. To show this flexibility, we propose an action-rule-based cognitive control (ARC) model. The ARC model was based on a stochastic framework consistent with an active inference of the free energy principle, combined with schematic brain network systems regulated by the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), to develop several hypotheses for demonstrating the validity of the ARC model.

Methods

A step-motion Simon task was developed involving congruence or incongruence between important symbolic information (illustration of a foot labeled "L" or "R," where "L" requests left and "R" requests right foot movement) and irrelevant spatial information (whether the illustration is actually of a left or right foot). We made predictions for behavioral and brain responses to testify to the theoretical predictions.

Results

Task responses combined with event-related deep-brain activity (ER-DBA) measures demonstrated a key contribution of the dACC in this process and provided evidence for the main prediction that the dACC could reduce the Shannon surprise term in the free energy formula by internally reversing the irrelevant rapid anticipatory postural adaptation. We also found sequential effects with modulated dip depths of ER-DBA waveforms that support the prediction that repeated stimuli with the same congruency can promote remodeling of the internal model through the information gain term while counterbalancing the surprise term.

Discussion

Overall, our results were consistent with experimental predictions, which may support the validity of the ARC model. The sequential effect accompanied by dip modulation of ER-DBA waveforms suggests that cognitive cost is saved while maintaining cognitive performance in accordance with the framework of the ARC based on 1-bit congruency-dependent selective control.

Contingency learning and episodic contributions to the item-specific proportion congruent effect

Several studies have challenged the conflict adaptation account of cognitive control effects, suggesting that they are the result of learning/memory processes independent from control modulation. Some authors have suggested that the item-specific proportion congruent (ISPC) effect (i.e., the smaller congruency effect on items presented frequently in an incongruent combination) is driven by colour-word contingency learning (CL). However, it has recently been suggested that CL can be explained in terms of episodic retrieval of the response given to the last encounter with the same stimulus, with no role of associative learning. This study aims to analyse the independent role of CL and episodic retrieval on the ISPC effect. Experiment 1 showed no effect of control modulation and indicated that, when manipulated independently, learning-driven contingency is modulated by the episodic factor, but it remains significant. Experiments 2 and 3 extended the study of the interplay between learning and recency to the colour-word CL paradigm, finding larger contingency effects on colour words compared with neutral ones and replicating the interaction between CL and episodic retrieval from Experiment 1. Surprisingly, these two experiments also showed control modulation apart from contingency and recency effects in colour words. In sum, our study reveals that the ISPC effect results from the joint contribution of cognitive control, associative learning, and episodic effects.

The Willpower Paradox: Possible and Impossible Conceptions of Self-Control

Self-control denotes the ability to override current desires to render behavior consistent with long-term goals. A key assumption is that self-control is required when short-term desires are transiently stronger (more preferred) than long-term goals and people would yield to temptation without exerting self-control. We argue that this widely shared conception of self-control raises a fundamental yet rarely discussed conceptual paradox: How is it possible that a person most strongly desires to perform a behavior (e.g., eat chocolate) and at the same time desires to recruit self-control to prevent themselves from doing it? A detailed analysis reveals that three common assumptions about self-control cannot be true simultaneously. To avoid the paradox, any coherent theory of self-control must abandon either the assumption (a) that recruitment of self-control is an intentional process, or (b) that humans are unitary agents, or (c) that self-control consists in overriding the currently strongest desire. We propose a taxonomy of different kinds of self-control processes that helps organize current theories according to which of these assumptions they abandon. We conclude by outlining unresolved questions and future research perspectives raised by different conceptions of self-control and discuss implications for the question of whether self-control can be considered rational.

The State of Cognitive Control in Language Processing

Understanding language requires readers and listeners to cull meaning from fast-unfolding messages that often contain conflicting cues pointing to incompatible ways of interpreting the input (e.g., "The cat was chased by the mouse"). This article reviews mounting evidence from multiple methods demonstrating that cognitive control plays an essential role in resolving conflict during language comprehension. How does cognitive control accomplish this task? Psycholinguistic proposals have conspicuously failed to address this question. We introduce an account in which cognitive control aids language processing when cues conflict by sending top-down biasing signals that strengthen the interpretation supported by the most reliable evidence available. We also provide a computationally plausible model that solves the critical problem of how cognitive control "knows" which way to direct its biasing signal by allowing linguistic knowledge itself to issue crucial guidance. Such a mental architecture can explain a range of experimental findings, including how moment-to-moment shifts in cognitive-control state-its level of activity within a person-directly impact how quickly and successfully language comprehension is achieved.

The Stroop legacy: A cautionary tale on methodological issues and a proposed spatial solution

The Stroop task is a seminal paradigm in experimental psychology, so much that various variants of the classical color-word version have been proposed. Here we offer a methodological review of them to emphasize the importance of designing methodologically rigorous Stroop tasks. This is not an end by itself, but it is fundamental to achieve adequate measurement validity, which is currently hindered by methodological heterogeneity and limitations. Among the several Stroop task variants in the literature, our methodological overview shows that the spatial Stroop task is not only a potentially methodologically adequate variant, which can thus assure measuring the Stroop effect with the required validity, but it might even allow researchers to overcome some of the methodological limitations of the classical paradigm due to its use of verbal stimuli. We thus focused on the spatial Stroop tasks in the literature to verify whether they really exploit such inherent potentiality. However, we show that this was generally not the case because only a few of them (1) are purely spatial, (2) ensure both all the three types of conflicts/facilitations (at the stimulus, response, and task levels) and the dimensional overlaps considered fundamental for yielding a complete Stroop effect according to the multiple loci account and Kornblum's theory, respectively, and (3) controlled for low-level binding and priming effects that could bias the estimated Stroop effect. Based on these methodological considerations, we present some examples of spatial Stroop tasks that, in our view, satisfy such requirements and, thus, ensure producing complete Stroop effects.

Learning of irrelevant stimulus-response associations modulates cognitive control

It has been shown that manipulating the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials in conflict tasks (e.g., Stroop, Simon, and flanker tasks) can vary the size of conflict effects, however, by two different mechanisms. One theory is the control learning account (the brain learns the probability of conflict and uses it to proactively adjust the control demand for future trials). The other is the irrelevant stimulus-response learning account (the brain learns the probability of irrelevant stimulus-response associations and uses it to prepare responses). Previous fMRI studies have detected the brain regions that contribute to the control-learning-modulated conflict effects, but it is less known what neural substrates underlie the conflict effects modulated by irrelevant S-R learning. We here investigated this question with a model-based fMRI study, in which the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials changed dynamically in the Simon task and the models learned the probability of irrelevant S-R associations quantitatively. Behavioral analyses showed that the unsigned prediction errors (PEs) of responses generated by the learning models correlated with reaction times irrespective of congruent and incongruent trials, indicating that large unsigned PEs associated with slow responses. The fMRI results showed that the regions of fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular network involved in cognitive control were significantly modulated by the unsigned PEs, also irrespective of congruent and incongruent trials, indicating that large unsigned PEs associated with transiently increased activity in these regions. These results together suggest that learning of irrelevant S-R associations modulates reactive control, which demonstrates a new way to modulate cognitive control compared to the control learning account.

Role of cognitive control in resolving two types of conflict during spoken word production

A theoretically- and clinically-important issue for understanding word retrieval is how speakers resolve conflict during linguistic tasks. This study investigated two types of conflict resolution: prepotent conflict, when one dominant incorrect response must be suppressed; and underdetermined conflict, when multiple reasonable responses compete. The congruency sequence effect paradigm was used to assess trial-to-trial changes in reaction time and accuracy during word production tasks with either prepotent or underdetermined conflict. Pictures were named faster on trials with low-conflict as compared to high-conflict regardless of conflict type. This effect was modulated by the amount of conflict experienced on the previous trial for both tasks. These results suggest that resolution of underdetermined and prepotent conflict may engage the same general cognitive mechanism. This work expands our understanding of the relationship between cognitive control and word production and can inform clinical approaches for people with anomia.

The role of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information in congruency sequence effects: Applying the diffusion model for conflict tasks

In conflict tasks, such as the Simon, Eriksen flanker, or Stroop task, the congruency effect is often reduced after an incongruent compared to a congruent trial: the congruency sequence effect (CSE). It was suggested that the CSE may reflect increased processing of task-relevant information and/or suppression of task-irrelevant information after experiencing an incongruent relative to a congruent trial. In the present study, we contribute to this discussion by applying the Diffusion Model for Conflict tasks (DMC) framework in the context of CSEs to flanker and Simon tasks. We argue that DMC independently models the task-relevant and task-irrelevant information and thus is a first good candidate for disentangling their unique contributions. As a first approach, we fitted DMC conjointly or separately to previously congruent or incongruent trials, using four empirical flanker and two Simon data sets. For the flanker task, we fitted the classical DMC version. For the Simon task, we fitted a generalized DMC version which allows the task-irrelevant information to undershoot when swinging back to zero. After considering the model fits, we present a second approach, where we implemented a cognitive control mechanism to simulate the influence of increased processing of task-relevant information or increased suppression of task-irrelevant information. Both approaches demonstrate that the suppression of task-irrelevant information is essential to create the typical CSE pattern. Increased processing of task-relevant information, however, could rarely describe the CSE accurately.

Differential effects of executive load on automatic versus controlled semantic memory retrieval

Growing evidence indicates that a domain-general executive control supports semantic memory retrieval, yet the nature of this interaction remains elusive. To shed light on such control mechanisms, we conducted two dual-task experiments loading distinct executive capacities (working memory maintenance, monitoring, and switching), while participants carried out automatic (free-associative) and controlled (dissociative) word retrieval tasks. We found that these forms of executive load interfered with retrieval fluency in both tasks, but these negative effects were more pronounced for the dissociative performance. Together, these findings indicate that the domain-general executive control supports accessing contextually relevant knowledge as well as the inhibition of automatically activated but task-inappropriate retrieval candidates, putatively via an adaptive gating of semantic activation and interference control. Moreover, the processing costs related to retrieval inhibition and switching were negatively correlated, suggesting a trade-off between the ability to constrain semantic activation (i.e., inhibition) and the ability to initiate flexible transitions between semantic sets (i.e., switching), which may thus represent two complementary control functions governing semantic memory retrieval.

Do Task Sets Compete in the Stroop Task and Other Selective Attention Paradigms?

Task sets have been argued to play an important role in cognition, giving rise to the notions of needing to switch between active task sets and to control competing task sets in selective attention tasks. For example, it has been argued that Stroop interference results from two categories of conflict: informational and task (set) conflict. Informational conflict arises from processing the word and is resolved by a late selection mechanism; task conflict arises when two task sets (i.e., word reading and colour identification) compete for activation and can be construed as involving an early selection mechanism. However, recent work has argued that task set control might not be needed to explain all of the switching cost in task switching studies. Here we consider whether task conflict plays a role in selective attention tasks. In particular, we consider whether S-R associations, which lead to informational conflict, are enough on their own to explain findings attributed to task set conflict. We review and critically evaluate both the findings that provided the original impetus for proposing task conflict in selective attention tasks and more recent findings reporting negative facilitation (longer RTs to congruent than to neutral stimuli) - a unique marker of task conflict. We then provide a tentative alternative account of negative facilitation based on poor control over informational conflict and apply it to a number of paradigms including the Colour-Object interference and Affordances tasks. It is argued that invoking competition between task sets in selective attention tasks might not be necessary.

Effects of conflict in cognitive control: Evidence from mouse tracking

It has long been debated whether the "congruency sequence effect (CSE)" in conflict tasks such as Flanker could reflect adaptive control. The current study used "mouse tracking" to tackle the issue in a combination of three conflict tasks (i.e., Flanker, Simon, and Spatial Stroop tasks). Congruency effects from previous and current trials emerged in latencies as well as curvature of movement trajectories in all three tasks. Critically, movement initiation times were affected only by congruency on previous but not on current trials. A further analysis showed that even when initiation time on the previous trials was taken into account, a subtle but highly significant effect of conflict arising from trial N-1 on initiation times remained. Although not necessarily implying "conflict adaptation," i.e., a dynamic up- and downregulation of cognitive control in response to a recent conflict, our finding indicates a specific sensitivity to the presence or absence of recent "conflict" in the cognitive environment.

Dissociating selectivity adjustments from temporal learning-introducing the context-dependent proportion congruency effect

The list-level proportion congruency effect (PCE) and the context-specific PC (CSPC) effect are typical findings in experimental conflict protocols, which competing explanations attribute to different mechanisms. Of these mechanisms, stimulus-unspecific conflict-induced selectivity adjustments have attracted the most interest, from various disciplines. Recent methodological advances have yielded an experimental procedure for entirely ruling out all stimulus-specific alternatives. However, there is a stimulus-unspecific alternative-temporal learning-which cannot even be ruled out as the sole cause of either effect with any established experimental procedure. That is because it is very difficult to create a scenario in which selectivity adjustments and temporal learning make different predictions-with traditional approaches, it is arguably impossible. Here, we take a step towards solving this problem, and experimentally dissociating the two mechanisms. First, we present our novel approach which is a combination of abstract experimental conditions and theoretical assumptions. As we illustrate with two computational models, given this particular combination, the two mechanisms predict opposite modulations of an as yet unexplored hybrid form of the list-level PCE and the CSPC effect, which we term context-dependent PCE (CDPCE). With experimental designs that implement the abstract conditions properly, it is therefore possible to rule out temporal learning as the sole cause of stimulus-unspecific adaptations to PC, and to unequivocally attribute the latter, at least partially, to selectivity adjustments. Secondly, we evaluate methodological and theoretical aspects of the presented approach. Finally, we report two experiments, that illustrate both the promise of and a potential challenge to this approach.

A diffusion model for the congruency sequence effect

Two-choice reaction tasks for which stimuli differ on irrelevant and relevant dimensions (e.g., Simon, flanker, and Stroop tasks) show congruency effects. The diffusion model for conflict tasks (DMC) has provided a quantitative account of the mechanisms underlying decisions in such conflict tasks, but it has not been applied to the congruency sequence effect (CSE) for which the congruency on the prior trial influences performance on the current trial. The present study expands analysis of the reaction time (RT) distributions reflected by delta plots to the CSE, and then extends the DMC to simulate the results. With increasing RT: (1) the spatial Simon effect was almost unchanged following congruent trials but initially became smaller and finally reversed following incongruent trials; (2) the arrow-based Simon effects increased following both congruent and incongruent trials, but more so for the former than the latter; (3) the flanker congruency effect varied quadratically following congruent trials but increased linearly following incongruent trials. These results were modeled by the CSE-DMC, extended from the DMC with two additional assumptions: (1) feature integration influences only the controlled processes; (2) following incongruent trials, the automatic process is weakened. The results fit better with the CSE-DMC than with two variants that separately had only one of the two additional assumptions. These findings indicate that the CSEs for different conflict tasks have disparate RT distributions and that these disparities are likely due to the controlled and automatic processes being influenced differently for each trial sequence.

Neuronal congruency effects in macaque prefrontal cortex

The interplay between task-relevant and task-irrelevant information may induce conflicts that impair behavioral performance, a.k.a. behavioral congruency effects. The neuronal mechanisms underlying behavioral congruency effects, however, are poorly understood. We recorded single unit activity in monkey prefrontal cortex using a task-switching paradigm and discovered a neuronal congruency effect (NCE) that is carried by target and distractor neurons which process target and distractor-related information, respectively. The former neurons provide more signal, the latter less noise in congruent compared to incongruent conditions, resulting in a better target representation. Such NCE is dominated by the level of congruency, and is not determined by the task rules the subjects used, their reaction times (RT), the length of the delay period, nor the response levels of the neurons. We propose that this NCE can explain behavioral congruency effects in general, as well as previous fMRI and EEG results in various conflict paradigms.

Stimulus-induced conflicts impair behavior in conflict tasks resulting in a phenomenon known as the behavioral congruency effect. Here, the authors investigate the neural underpinnings of this phenomenon and report a neuronal congruency effect in macaque prefrontal cortex to explain this impairment.

Both task-irrelevant and task-relevant information trigger reactive conflict adaptation in the item-specific proportion-congruent paradigm

Adapting attention flexibly is a fundamental ability of the human control system. In the color-word Stroop task, for example, congruency effects are typically smaller for colors and words that appear mainly in incongruent stimuli (mostly-incongruent items) than for colors and words that appear mainly in congruent stimuli (mostly-congruent items). At least part of this item-specific proportion-congruent (ISPC) effect is due to a process of reactive conflict adaptation that affords higher selectivity (i.e., more efficient selection of task-relevant information) when a specific stimulus is presented that is frequently associated in the experiment with conflicting task-irrelevant information. What is unclear, however, is whether, normally, this stimulus-specific adaptation is triggered by the task-relevant component, the task-irrelevant component, or both components of the stimulus. In two experiments, using modified color-word (Experiment 1) and spatial (Experiment 2) Stroop tasks that allowed task-relevant and task-irrelevant triggering processes to be dissociated, we found that the two processes have approximately equivalent impacts. Because these results were obtained in experiments imposing no limitations on the processes potentially contributing to the ISPC effect, these results challenge claims that the ISPC effect involves conflict-adaptation processes only in special situations. The ISPC effect may involve conflict-adaptation processes in most situations, with both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information triggering such processes.

Accounting for Proportion Congruency Effects in the Stroop Task in a Confounded Setup: Retrieval of Stimulus-Response Episodes Explains it All

Proportion congruency (PC) effects on the strength of distractor interference were investigated in a high-powered (n = 109), pre-registered experiment in which participants had to identify the ink color of color words. Replicating the standard PC effect, Stroop interference was larger in blocks comprising mostly congruent word-color combinations, compared to blocks comprising mostly incongruent trials. These block-level differences in the strength of the Stroop effect were eliminated after controlling for (a) the congruency of the most recent episode in which the current word had been presented (“episodic retrieval of control states”), and also after controlling for (b) the response relation of this episode and the current trial (“episodic response retrieval”). Controlling for the congruency in trial n-1 (congruency sequence effect, CSE), irrespective of word relation did not eliminate the PC effect, nor did controlling for immediate exact and partial repetitions. When predicting PC effects simultaneously by both types of episodic retrieval processes, only episodic response retrieval explained the effect. Our findings attest to the importance of episodic response retrieval processes in explaining the PC effect in Stroop-like tasks in a confounded setup where different processes compete with each, and they speak against explanations in terms of a global adjustment of cognitive control settings or contingency learning under these conditions. The results further support the assumption that the most recent episode in which a stimulus had occurred is crucial for responding in the current trial (the “law of recency”; Giesen et al., 2020).

Conflict- and error-related theta activities are coupled to BOLD signals in different brain regions

Both conflict and error processing have been linked to the midfrontal theta power (4-8 Hz) increase as indicated by EEG studies and greater hemodynamic activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) as indicated by fMRI studies. Conveniently, the source of the midfrontal theta power was estimated in or nearby aMCC. However, previous studies using concurrent EEG and fMRI recordings in resting-state or other cognitive tasks observed only a negative relationship between theta power and BOLD signal in the brain regions typically showing task-related deactivations. In this study, we used a simultaneous EEG-fMRI technique to investigate a trial-by-trial coupling between theta power and hemodynamic activity during the performance of two conflict tasks. Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied to denoise the EEG signal and select individual midfrontal EEG components, whereas group ICA was applied to fMRI data to obtain a functional parcellation of the frontal cortex. Using a linear mixed-effect model, theta power was coupled with the peak of hemodynamic responses from various frontal, cingulate, and insular cortical sites to unravel the potential brain sources that contribute to conflict- and error-related theta variability. Although several brain regions exhibited conflict-related increases in hemodynamic activity, the conflict pre-response theta showed only a negative correlation to BOLD signal in the midline area 9 (MA9), a region exhibiting conflict-sensitive deactivation. Conversely, and more expectedly, error-related theta showed a positive relationship to activity in the aMCC. Our results provide novel evidence suggesting that the amplitude of pre-response theta reflects the process of active inhibition that suppresses the MA9 activity. This process is affected independently by the stimulus congruency, reaction times variance, and is susceptible to the time-on-task effect. Finally, it predicts the commitment of an omission error. Together, our findings highlight that conflict- and error-related theta oscillations represent fundamentally different processes.

What is cued by faces in the face-based context-specific proportion congruent manipulation?

In a typical context-specific proportion congruent manipulation, participants are presented with Stroop stimuli in one of two contexts. In one context, stimuli are mostly incongruent. In the other context, stimuli are mostly congruent. Despite task-wide instructions to ignore the word and to name the color in which the word appears, the size of the congruency effect varies as a function of context. Specifically, the size of the congruency effect is reduced for the mostly incongruent relative to the mostly congruent context. The purpose of the current series of experiments is to explore the mechanisms underlying this context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect when faces are used as the context. Existing manipulations have reported a face-based CSPC effect, however the results of these studies are confounded with contingency learning biases leaving an open question as to what processes faces serve to cue. In the four experiments reported here both inducer (contingency-biased) and diagnostic (contingency-unbiased) stimuli were included in a face-based context level manipulation. Across four experiments, a face-based CSPC effect is observed for inducer but not diagnostic stimuli, suggesting that this effect is driven by participants learning context + stimulus associations.

The item-specific proportion congruency effect transfers to non-category members based on broad visual similarity

The item-specific proportion congruency (ISPC) effect-that Stroop effects are reduced for items that are more likely to be incongruent than congruent-indicates that humans have the remarkable capacity to resolve conflict when it is associated with statistical regularities in the environment. It has been demonstrated that an ISPC signal induced by mostly congruent and mostly incongruent inducer items transfers to a set of distinct but visually similar transfer items that are equally likely to be congruent and incongruent; however, it is unclear what the ISPC signal is associated with to allow its transfer. To investigate this issue, an animal Stroop task was used to evaluate whether the ISPC signal would transfer to animal pictures that were different but visually similar same-category members (e.g., retrievers to retrievers, Experiment 1), visually dissimilar same-category members with broadly similar features (e.g., retrievers to bulldogs, Experiment 2), and visually dissimilar different-category members with broadly similar features (e.g., retrievers to house cats, Experiment 3). It was revealed that an ISPC effect was observed for the transfer items of each experiment, suggesting that these conflict signals can be linked based on broad feature similarity.

The Specificity and Reliability of Conflict Adaptation: A Mouse-Tracking Study

Researchers have recently begun to question the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation effects, also known as sequential congruency effects (SCEs), a highly cited effect in cognitive psychology. Some have even used the lack of reliability across tasks (e.g., Flanker, and Stroop) to argue against models of cognitive control that have dominated the field for decades. The present study tested the possibility that domain-general processes across tasks might appear on more sensitive mouse-tracking metrics rather than overall reaction times. The relationship between SCE effects on the Stroop and Flanker tasks were examined for the first time using a mouse-tracking paradigm. Three main findings emerged: (1) Robust SCEs were observed for both the Stroop and Flanker tasks at the group level, (2) Within-task split-half reliabilities for the SCE across dependent variables were weak at best and non-existent in many cases, and (3) SCEs for the Flanker and Stroop tasks did not correlate with each other for overall reaction times, but did show significant correlations between tasks on more dynamic measures that captured processes before response execution. These findings contribute to the literature by highlighting how mouse-tracking may be a fruitful avenue by which future studies can examine the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation and tease apart different theoretical models producing the effects.

Different types of semantic interference, same lapses of attention: Evidence from Stroop tasks

This research investigated the possibility that semantic control mechanisms are recruited only when the interfering semantic information does not overlap with task-relevant semantic dimensions. To reach this goal, we investigated two semantic types of Stroop interference-the semantic and the taboo Stroop effects-and used delta-plots to investigate the role of attentional and semantic control in these two interference phenomena. The semantic Stroop effect, where interference stems from the task-relevant color-related information, was absent in faster responses, whereas it steeply increased in the slowest ones. Contrary to our predictions, the same pattern was detected even for the taboo Stroop interference, with no trace of selective suppression of the interfering semantic connotation, despite its dissociation from any task-relevant semantic dimension. Further, there was a significant correlation between the increase of the two effects in the slowest responses, pointing towards a common underlying processing dynamic. We identified such common background with lapses of executive attention in maintaining task goals and schema, which in turn make the participants performance more prone to interference phenomena. Finally, the absence of any interference effects in the fastest responses suggests that an effective filtering of the distracting word stimuli can be implemented in the context of Stroop paradigms.

The item-specific proportion congruency effect can be contaminated by short-term repetition priming

The item-specific proportion congruency (ISPC) effect reflects the phenomenon that Stroop congruency effects are larger for Stroop items that are more likely to be congruent (MC) than incongruent (MI). While the ISPC effect is purported to reflect long-term memory associations, the proportion manipulation entails that stimulus repetitions vary as a function of the MC and MI conditions, suggesting that a short-term repetition priming process may also contribute. In the present study, we investigated whether the ISPC effect reflected contributions from separate long-term associative learning and short-term repetition priming processes. To do so, the magnitude of the ISPC effect was compared when stimulus repetitions were present and absent. While the ISPC effect was robust, it was revealed that removing stimulus repetitions significantly attenuated the effect. Overall, the present study indicates the ISPC effect can reflect contributions from both short-term repetition and long-term memory processes.

Anti-saccade as a Tool to Evaluate Neurocognitive Impairment in Alcohol Use Disorder

It has been widely shown that chronic alcohol use leads to cognitive dysfunctions, especially inhibitory control. In an extension of the traditional approach, this research field has benefited from the emergence of innovative measures, among which is an anti-saccade, allowing direct and sensitive measure of the eye movements indexing attention bias to alcohol-related cues and the capability of inhibiting the reflexive saccades to the cues. During the past decade, there are numerous reports showing that drinkers make more unwanted reflexive saccades and longer latency in the anti-saccade task. These increased errors are usually explained by the deficits in inhibitory control. It has been demonstrated that inhibitory control on eye movement may be one of the earliest biomarkers of the onset of alcohol-related cognitive impairments. This review summarizes how an anti-saccade task can be used as a tool to investigate and assess the cognitive dysfunctions and the early detection of relapsing risk of alcohol dependence.

Can the Stroop effect serve as the gold standard of conflict monitoring and control? A conceptual critique

The Stroop effect has been a key to the assay of selective attention since the time of the epoch-making study by J.R. Stroop almost a century ago. However, recent work based on computational modeling and recording of brain activations ignored the primary meaning of the Stroop effect as a measure of selectivity-with the Stroop test losing its raison d'être. Espousing the new framework, numerous studies in the past 20 years conceived performance in the Stroop task in terms of conflict-induced adjustments governed by central control on a trial-to-trial basis. In the face of this tsunami, we try to convince the reader that the Stroop effect cannot serve as a testing ground for conflict-monitoring and control, because these constructs are fundamentally unsuited to serve as a candidate theory of Stroop processes. A range of problems are discussed that singly and collectively pose grave doubts regarding the validity of a control and conflict monitoring account in the Stroop domain. We show how the key notion of conflict is misconstrued in conflict-monitoring models. Due to space limitations and for sake of wider accessibility, our treatment here cannot be technical.

Proportion of conflict, contingency learning, and recency effects in a Stroop task

Recent research on the relation between learning and cognitive control has assumed that conflict modulates learning, either by increasing arousal and hence improving learning in high-conflict situations, or by inducing control, and hence inhibiting the processing of distracters and their eventual association with the imperative responses. We analyse whether the amount of conflict, manipulated through the proportion of congruency in a set of Stroop inducer trials, affects learning of contingencies established on diagnostic trials composed by neutral words associated with colour responses. The results reproduced the list-wide proportion of congruency effect on the inducer trials, and showed evidence of contingency learning on the diagnostic trials, but provided no indication that this learning was modulated by the level of conflict. Specific analyses conducted to control for the impact of episodic effects on the expression of learning indicated that contingency effects were not driven by the incremental processes that could be expected by associative learning, but rather they were due to the impact of the most recent trial involving the same distracter. Accordingly, these effects disappeared when tested selectively on trials that required a non-matching response with respect to the previous occurrence of the distracter. We interpret this result in the context of the debate on how learning and memory interact with the processes of cognitive control.

Interactive modulations between congruency sequence effects and validity sequence effects

Sequential modulations have been found in both conflict and spatial orienting tasks. The former is called congruency sequence effects (CSE) and the latter is called validity sequence effects (VSE). Although the two effects have similar phenomenon descriptions, the relationship of the cognitive control mechanisms under the two effects is still unclear. Using a modified attentional network test (ANT), a flanker task and an arrow cueing task are integrated into a single task, which enables the test of the possible interactions between CSE and VSE. Since a confound-minimized design is used, the observed sequence effects cannot be attributed to the feature integration of low-level stimulus features or the contingency learning. It was found that the CSE are only significant when the arrow cue in preceding trial is invalid, and the VSE are only significant when the target letter in preceding trial is congruent with the distractor letters. The findings suggest that the sequential modulations during orienting and executive control of attention networks are highly interacted with each other, and the sequence effects in these networks are possibly controlled by a complex and multifaceted adaptive control mechanism.

Stimulus-Response Conflict Tasks and Their Use in Clinical Psychology

This article reviews the historical usage of the concept of ‘conflict’ in psychology and delineates the design and development of three basic conflict tasks (Stroop, Flanker, Stop Signal). Afterwards, important theoretical concepts to account for conflict processing are introduced. In the second part, the usage of these tasks in clinical psychology is considered. The article closes with some reflections regarding factors that may have been hitherto largely neglected in this respect.

Therapy Dog Welfare Revisited: A Review of the Literature

During the past decade, the field of human-animal interaction(s) research has been characterized by a significant increase in scientific findings. These data have contributed to our current understanding of how humans may benefit from contact with animals. However, the animal experience of these interactions is still an under-researched area. This paper addresses the welfare of dogs who participate in animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) to improve health in human recipients. This paper builds on previous work by Glenk (2017) and provides an updated review of the literature on therapy dog welfare published from 2017-2021. New advances in scientific methodology, such as the determination of salivary oxytocin, breath rate and tympanic membrane temperature, are analyzed regarding their value and limitations for research in AAIs. Moreover, welfare-related social and environmental factors (e.g., freedom of choice, exploration of novel environments, inequity aversion, individual development, working experience, relationship with handler and handler skills) that profoundly influence dog perception and well-being are reviewed and discussed. Accounting for the globally increasing interest and the number of dogs utilized in AAIs, safeguarding therapy dog well-being, and identifying situations, circumstances and protocols that may challenge animal welfare remains an emerging and crucial area of scientific effort.

The loci of Stroop effects: a critical review of methods and evidence for levels of processing contributing to color-word Stroop effects and the implications for the loci of attentional selection

Despite instructions to ignore the irrelevant word in the Stroop task, it robustly influences the time it takes to identify the color, leading to performance decrements (interference) or enhancements (facilitation). The present review addresses two questions: (1) What levels of processing contribute to Stroop effects; and (2) Where does attentional selection occur? The methods that are used in the Stroop literature to measure the candidate varieties of interference and facilitation are critically evaluated and the processing levels that contribute to Stroop effects are discussed. It is concluded that the literature does not provide clear evidence for a distinction between conflicting and facilitating representations at phonological, semantic and response levels (together referred to as informational conflict), because the methods do not currently permit their isolated measurement. In contrast, it is argued that the evidence for task conflict as being distinct from informational conflict is strong and, thus, that there are at least two loci of attentional selection in the Stroop task. Evidence suggests that task conflict occurs earlier, has a different developmental trajectory and is independently controlled which supports the notion of a separate mechanism of attentional selection. The modifying effects of response modes and evidence for Stroop effects at the level of response execution are also discussed. It is argued that multiple studies claiming to have distinguished response and semantic conflict have not done so unambiguously and that models of Stroop task performance need to be modified to more effectively account for the loci of Stroop effects.

The role of contingency and correlation in the Stroop task

Facilitation (faster responses to Congruent trials compared with Neutral trials) in the Stroop task has been a difficult effect for models of cognitive control to explain. The current research investigated the role of word-response contingency, word-colour correlation, and proportion congruency in producing Stroop effects. Contingency and correlation refers to the probability of specific word-response and word-colour pairings that are implicitly learnt while performing the task. Pairs that have a higher probability of occurring are responded to faster, a finding that challenges top-down attention control accounts of Stroop task performance. However, studies that try to experimentally control for contingency and correlation typically do so by increasing the proportion of incongruent trials in the task, which cognitive control accounts posit affects interference control via the top-down biasing of attention. The present research focused on whether facilitation is also affected by contingency and correlation while additionally looking at the effect of proportion congruency. This was done in two experiments that compared the typical design of Stroop task experiments (i.e., having equal proportions of Congruent and Incongruent trials but also contingency and correlational biases) to: (a) a design that had unequal congruency proportions but no contingency or correlation bias (Experiment 1) and (b) a design where the correlation is biased but proportion congruency and contingency were not (Experiment 2). Results did not support the hypotheses that contingency or correlation affected facilitation. However, interference was almost halved in the alternative design of Experiment 2, demonstrating an effect of contingency learning in typical measures of Stroop interference.

Tracking dynamic adjustments to decision making and performance monitoring processes in conflict tasks

How we exert control over our decision-making has been investigated using conflict tasks, which involve stimuli containing elements that are either congruent or incongruent. In these tasks, participants adapt their decision-making strategies following exposure to incongruent stimuli. According to conflict monitoring accounts, conflicting stimulus features are detected in medial frontal cortex, and the extent of experienced conflict scales with response time (RT) and frontal theta-band activity in the Electroencephalogram (EEG). However, the consequent adjustments to decision processes following response conflict are not well-specified. To characterise these adjustments and their neural implementation we recorded EEG during a modified Flanker task. We traced the time-courses of performance monitoring processes (frontal theta) and multiple processes related to perceptual decision-making. In each trial participants judged which of two overlaid gratings forming a plaid stimulus (termed the S1 target) was of higher contrast. The stimulus was divided into two sections, which each contained higher contrast gratings in either congruent or incongruent directions. Shortly after responding to the S1 target, an additional S2 target was presented, which was always congruent. Our EEG results suggest enhanced sensory evidence representations in visual cortex and reduced evidence accumulation rates for S2 targets following incongruent S1 stimuli. Results of a follow-up behavioural experiment indicated that the accumulation of sensory evidence from the incongruent (i.e. distracting) stimulus element was adjusted following response conflict. Frontal theta amplitudes positively correlated with RT following S1 targets (in line with conflict monitoring accounts). Following S2 targets there was no such correlation, and theta amplitude profiles instead resembled decision evidence accumulation trajectories. Our findings provide novel insights into how cognitive control is implemented following exposure to conflicting information, which is critical for extending conflict monitoring accounts.

Cross-task congruency sequence effect without the contribution of multiple expectancy

The confound-minimized cross-task design has been widely used to examine the characteristics of top-down cognitive control underlying the congruency sequence effect (CSE) without feature integration and contingency learning confounds. The present study reanalyzed our previous data obtained with the confound-minimized cross-task design, this time including the preceding congruency repetition type, to examine whether the cross-task CSE is confounded by feature integration from two-back (n-2) trials or multiple expectancies regarding the congruency and the congruency repetition type of the upcoming trial. As a result, the cross-task CSE interacted with the arbitrariness of S-R mapping or response mode regardless of the preceding congruency repetition type, indicating the contribution of top-down control triggered by conflict. Feature integration from n-2 trials, but not multiple expectancies, was found to have a lingering effect on the sequential modulation of the congruency effect between previous and current trials. However, because the influence of feature integration operated in opposite directions depending on the preceding congruency repetition type, the contribution of feature integration to the cross-task CSE can be minimized when the combined datasets of trials following a congruency repetition trial and those following a congruency alternation trial are analyzed. These findings are consistent with recent perspectives on cognitive control, which posit that top-down cognitive control and bottom-up feature integration operate independently to optimize task performance.