Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Conflict adaptation is an important phenomenon, as the interference effect on the current trials is reduced following incongruent versus congruent trials. Moreover, conflict adaptation effect (CAE) is thought to measure adaptive control on a trial-by-trial basis. There are two main theories explaining the mechanisms underlying CAE: conflict monitoring theory and adaptation by binding theory. However, both theories have not explicitly proposed a clear relationship between conflict strength and cognitive control adjustment. Previous studies have mostly focused on the type of conflict that triggers CAE, which reflected qualitative analysis. Hence, it remains unclear whether changes in the level of conflict of the same conflict type affect conflict adaptation. To address the above issue, the present study recruited 31 healthy participants with a mean age of 19.74 years to perform the variant of the letter flanker task without feature repetitions. Each stimulus was composed of “F/H/N/P” letter components and arranged in a way that a central target letter was flanked by symmetric arrays of two distracter letters. Experiment manipulated the level of conflict by parametrically varying the target-distracter compatibility. Flankers were 100% compatible with the central target for no-conflict condition (e.g., NNNNN), 50% for low-conflict condition (e.g., HNNNH), and 0% for high-conflict condition (e.g., HHNHH). Congruent stimuli were presented on 50% of trials with each incongruent condition occurring equally often on the remaining 50% of trials. Results showed that reaction times (RTs) increased with the number of incompatible flankers, suggesting a correlation with the level of conflict. Moreover, the interaction between previous trial congruency (no-conflict/low-conflict/high-conflict) and current trial congruency (no-conflict/low-conflict/high-conflict) was significant, which suggested that congruency of previous trials affected the interference effect of current trials. Follow-up analyses revealed that there were classic conflict adaptation phenomena between no-conflict and low-conflict, no-conflict and high-conflict, and low-conflict and high-conflict conditions. These results showed that conflict adaptation was also triggered by the level of conflict in addition to the occurrence of the conflict. Overall, the present study demonstrated that the conflict strength of previous trials was related to the cognitive control level of current trials, showing that larger conflict led to stronger cognitive control adjustment. In addition, the function of conflict-induced cognitive control may be realized by attentional focusing. In conclusion, the present study emphasizes that changes in the level of conflict could trigger conflict adaptation, which provides more direct support for attention adjustment mechanism of conflict monitoring theory. Combining existing researches, we infer that conflict monitoring is sensitive to the type and level of conflict, and adjusts the level of cognitive control to facilitate conflict resolution.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-09-08
Abstract： Conflict adaptation is an important phenomenon, as the interference effect on the current trial is reduced following incongruent versus congruent trial. Moreover, conflict adaptation effect (CAE) is thought to measure adaptive control on a trial-by-trial basis. There are two main theories to explain the mechanisms underlying CAE: conflict monitoring theory and adaptation by binding theory. However, both theories have not explicitly proposed a clear relationship between conflict strength and cognitive control adjustment. Previous studies have mostly focused on the type of conflict that triggers CAE, which reflected qualitative analysis. Hence, it remains unclear whether changes in the level of conflict of the same conflict type affect conflict adaptation. To address the above issue, the present study recruited 31 healthy participants with a mean age of 19.74 years to perform the variant of the letter flanker task without feature repetitions. Each stimulus was composed of “F/H/N/P” letter components and arranged such that a central target letter was flanked by symmetric arrays of two distracter letters. Experiment manipulated the level of conflict by parametrically varying the target-distracter compatibility. Flankers were 100% compatible with the central target for no-conflict condition (e.g., NNNNN), 50% for low-conflict condition (e.g., HNNNH), and 0% for high-conflict condition (e.g., HHNHH). Congruent stimuli were presented on 50% of trials with each incongruent condition occurring equally often on the remaining 50% of trials. Results showed that reaction times (RTs) increased with the number of incompatible flankers, suggesting a correlation with the level of conflict. Moreover, the interaction between previous trial congruency (no-conflict/low-conflict/high-conflict) and current trial congruency (no-conflict/low-conflict/high-conflict) was significant, which suggested that congruency of previous trial affected the interference effect of current trial. Follow-up analyses revealed that there were classic conflict adaptation phenomena between no-conflict and low-conflict, no-conflict and high-conflict, and low-conflict and high-conflict conditions. These results showed that conflict adaptation was also triggered by the level of conflict in addition to the occurrence of the conflict. Overall, the present study demonstrated that the conflict strength of previous trial was related to the cognitive control level of current trial, showing that larger conflict led to stronger cognitive control adjustment. In addition, the function of conflict-induced cognitive control may be realized by attention focusing. In conclusion, the present study emphasizes that changes in the level of conflict could trigger conflict adaptation that provides more direct supporting evidence for attention adjustment mechanism of conflict monitoring theory. Combining existing research, we infer that conflict monitoring was sensitive to the type and level of conflict and that it adjusted the level of cognitive control to facilitate conflict resolution.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2018-10-26 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract：认知控制是动态的、过程性的认知调控, 涉及监测和控制两个过程。先前研究表明奖赏可以提升认知控制, 但是奖赏是通过增强信号监测来提升认知控制的, 还是作用于控制过程来提升认知控制的, 是一个有待研究的重要问题。在本研究中, 我们设计了三个实验来调查这一问题。实验一采用Stop-Signal任务验证奖赏是否能提升认知控制; 实验二通过改变反应规则将Stop-Signal任务信号监测加工分离出来, 探讨实验一中奖赏的提升作用是否来源于奖赏对信号监测的增强; 实验三通过操纵注意资源损耗分析, 考察注意资源分配对信号监测的促进作用。实验一结果显示, 个体能更快的根据奖赏信息做出抑制反应。实验二结果表明, 在信号监测任务中, 个体能更加快速的监测到与当前抑制状态相冲突且和奖赏相关的反应信号, 据此可认为奖赏通过增强对相关信号的监测, 有助于个体更早地启动奖赏刺激信号所对应的反应, 更高效地控制冲突。实验三结果说明, 当任务难度增大, 注意资源损耗, 奖赏相关信号的反应时和正确率仍优于无奖赏信号, 说明注意资源的分配可以调节相关信号的监测速度。总体来看, 本研究通过一系列实验表明, 以目标为导向的行为发生过程中, 奖赏能有效提升认知控制效率, 其关键机制在于通过注意资源分配增强相关信号的监测。
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