Hinault Thomas, Dufau Stéphane, Lemaire Patrick
Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS, Marseille, France.
Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS, Marseille, France.
Brain Cogn. 2014 Nov;91:123-30. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2014.09.001. Epub 2014 Oct 11.
When participants accomplish cognitive tasks, they obtain poorer performance if asked to execute a poorer strategy than a better strategy on a given problem. These poorer-strategy effects are smaller following execution of a poorer strategy relative to following a better strategy. To investigate ERP correlates of sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects, we asked participants (n=20) to accomplish a computational estimation task (i.e., provide approximate products to two-digit multiplication problems like 38×74). For each problem, they were cued to execute a better versus a poorer strategy. We found event-related potentials signatures of sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects in two crucial windows (i.e., between 200 and 550 ms and between 850 and 1250 ms) associated with executive control mechanisms and allowing conflict monitoring between the better and the cued strategy. These results have important implications on theories of strategies as they suggest that sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects involve earlier as well as later mechanisms of cognitive control during strategy execution.
当参与者完成认知任务时，如果被要求在给定问题上执行比更好策略更差的策略，他们的表现会更差。相对于执行更好的策略，执行较差的策略后，这些较差策略效应会更小。为了研究较差策略效应顺序调制的ERP相关性，我们要求参与者（n = 20）完成一项计算估计任务（即对诸如38×74的两位数乘法问题提供近似乘积）。对于每个问题，他们被提示执行更好或更差的策略。我们在与执行控制机制相关的两个关键窗口（即200至550毫秒之间以及850至1250毫秒之间）中发现了较差策略效应顺序调制的事件相关电位特征，这些窗口允许对更好策略和提示策略之间进行冲突监测。这些结果对策略理论具有重要意义，因为它们表明较差策略效应的顺序调制涉及策略执行过程中认知控制的早期和后期机制。
