The congruency sequence effect 3.0: a critical test of conflict adaptation

Over the last two decades, the congruency sequence effect (CSE) -the finding of a reduced congruency effect following incongruent trials in conflict tasks- has played a central role in advancing research on cognitive control. According to the influential conflict-monitoring account, the CSE reflects...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-10, Vol.9 (10), p.e110462-e110462
Main Authors: Duthoo, Wout, Abrahamse, Elger L, Braem, Senne, Boehler, C Nico, Notebaert, Wim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Attention task
Binding
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain research
Cognitive ability
Conflict (Psychology)
Contingency
Experimental psychology
Female
Humans
Learning
Male
Memory
Reaction Time - physiology
Researchers
Social Sciences
Stroop Test
Task Performance and Analysis
Young Adult
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Summary:Over the last two decades, the congruency sequence effect (CSE) -the finding of a reduced congruency effect following incongruent trials in conflict tasks- has played a central role in advancing research on cognitive control. According to the influential conflict-monitoring account, the CSE reflects adjustments in selective attention that enhance task focus when needed, often termed conflict adaptation. However, this dominant interpretation of the CSE has been called into question by several alternative accounts that stress the role of episodic memory processes: feature binding and (stimulus-response) contingency learning. To evaluate the notion of conflict adaptation in accounting for the CSE, we construed versions of three widely used experimental paradigms (the colour-word Stroop, picture-word Stroop and flanker task) that effectively control for feature binding and contingency learning. Results revealed that a CSE can emerge in all three tasks. This strongly suggests a contribution of attentional control to the CSE and highlights the potential of these unprecedentedly clean paradigms for further examining cognitive control.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0110462