Lamers Martijn J M, Roelofs Ardi
Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognition, Postbus 9104, 6500 HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2011 Jun;64(6):1056-81. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2010.523792. Epub 2010 Nov 28.
In the Eriksen flanker and colour-word Stroop tasks, the response time (RT) difference between incongruent and congruent trials is smaller following incongruent trials than following congruent trials: the "Gratton effect" (Gratton, Coles, & Donchin, 1992). According to the prevailing conflict-monitoring theory (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001), the Gratton effect reflects attentional control adjustment following response conflict on incongruent trials. However, because previous studies compared incongruent and congruent trials, it remains unclear to what extent the Gratton effect is driven by incongruent rather than congruent trials. To resolve this issue, we included neutral trials in addition to incongruent and congruent trials in the Eriksen (Experiment 1) and Stroop (Experiment 2) tasks. Participants responded manually and vocally in both tasks. Moreover, we assessed responding to Stroop stimuli that were preceded by neutral cues or by incongruent- or congruent-predicting cues (Experiment 3). In all three experiments, the RT difference between incongruent and congruent trials was larger for postcongruent trials than for postincongruent and postneutral trials. These findings suggest that control adjustments can be independent of response conflict, challenging conflict-monitoring theory.
在埃里克森侧翼任务和颜色-词斯特鲁普任务中，不一致试验后的不一致试验与一致试验之间的反应时（RT）差异比一致试验后的要小：即“格拉顿效应”（格拉顿、科尔斯和唐钦，1992）。根据流行的冲突监测理论（博特维尼克、布雷弗、巴奇、卡特和科恩，2001），格拉顿效应反映了在不一致试验中反应冲突后注意力控制的调整。然而，由于先前的研究比较了不一致试验和一致试验，格拉顿效应在多大程度上是由不一致试验而非一致试验驱动的仍不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们在埃里克森任务（实验1）和斯特鲁普任务（实验2）中，除了不一致试验和一致试验外还纳入了中性试验。参与者在这两项任务中都进行手动和口头反应。此外，我们评估了对由中性线索或不一致或一致预测线索之前呈现的斯特鲁普刺激的反应（实验3）。在所有三个实验中，一致试验后的不一致试验与一致试验之间的RT差异比不一致试验后和中性试验后的要大。这些发现表明控制调整可以独立于反应冲突，这对冲突监测理论提出了挑战。
