Conflict adjustment devoid of perceptual selection

Task performance suffers when an aspect of a stimulus is associated with an incorrect response, thereby evoking cognitive conflict. Such impairment is reduced after recent or frequent conflict occurrence, suggesting attentional adjustment. We examined adjustment to conflict evoked by a temporarily i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta psychologica 2013-09, Vol.144 (1), p.31-39
Main Authors: Wendt, Mike, Luna-Rodriguez, Aquiles, Kiesel, Andrea, Jacobsen, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition. Intelligence
Conflict (Psychology)
Conflict adjustment
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Miscellaneous
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Task Performance and Analysis
Task switching
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Summary:Task performance suffers when an aspect of a stimulus is associated with an incorrect response, thereby evoking cognitive conflict. Such impairment is reduced after recent or frequent conflict occurrence, suggesting attentional adjustment. We examined adjustment to conflict evoked by a temporarily irrelevant S–R rule when participants frequently switched between two semantic classification tasks by manipulating the proportion of conflict trials in one of them. Controlling stimulus-specific presentation frequencies, we found reduced conflict effects under conditions of a higher proportion of conflict trials in the task to which the manipulation was applied, whereas there was no such effect in the other task. Additional analyses demonstrated task-specificity regarding trial-to-trial conflict adjustment. Because conflict was evoked in the absence of perceptually distinct target and distractor stimulus features, these adjustment effects cannot be attributed to perceptual selection. •We examine attentional adjustment to conflict between perceptually identical tasks.•Stimulus-specific practice and expectation effects are controlled.•Adjustment to both frequent and recent conflict takes place in a task-specific manner.•The results demonstrate task-specific non-perceptual adjustment.
ISSN:0001-6918
1873-6297
DOI:10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.04.019