Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2011 May;48(5):591-600. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01137.x. Epub 2010 Nov 2.
A central topic in the cognitive sciences is how cognitive control is adapted flexibly to changing task demands. Conflict monitoring theory originally proposed conflict triggered adjustments of cognitive control after a conflict trial to improve subsequent performance. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that readjustments of cognitive control occur continuously within a conflict trial itself. Using frequency tagged electroencephalogram in a flanker task, we traced the allocation of attention to target and distracter stimuli. We found evidence for a conflict-triggered within-trial contrast enhancement dissociating target and distracters. This contrast enhancement vanished for consecutive trials with constant tagging frequencies, indicating that trial-to-trial conflict adaptation effects may, at least partly, be the product of interacting processes serving conflict resolution within trials.
认知科学的一个核心主题是认知控制如何灵活适应不断变化的任务需求。冲突监测理论最初提出，在冲突试验后，冲突会引发认知控制的调整，以提高后续的表现。在本研究中，我们检验了这样一个假设，即在冲突试验本身内部，认知控制会持续进行调整。在一项侧抑制任务中使用频率标记脑电图，我们追踪了注意力在目标和分心刺激之间的分配。我们发现了冲突触发的试验内对比增强的证据，这种对比增强在连续的恒定标记频率试验中消失了，这表明试验间冲突适应效应可能至少部分是在试验内解决冲突的相互作用过程的产物。
