Surrey Caroline, Dreisbach Gesine, Fischer Rico
a Department of Psychology , Technische Universität Dresden , Dresden , Germany.
b Department of Psychology , University of Regensburg , Regensburg , Germany.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2017 Nov;70(11):2386-2401. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1239748. Epub 2016 Oct 19.
Cognitive control protects processing of relevant information from interference by irrelevant information. The level of this processing selectivity can be flexibly adjusted to different control demands (e.g., frequency of conflict) associated with a certain context, leading to the formation of specific context-control associations. In the present study we investigated the robustness and transferability of the acquired context-control demands to new situations. In three experiments, we used a version of the context-specific proportion congruence (CSPC) paradigm, in which each context (e.g., location) is associated with a specific conflict frequency, determining high and low control demands. In a learning phase, associations between context and control demands were established. In a subsequent transfer block, stimulus-response mappings, whole task sets, or context-control demands changed. Results showed an impressive robustness of context-control associations, as context-specific adjustments of control from the learning phase were virtually unaffected by new stimuli and tasks in the transfer block. Only a change of the context-control demand eliminated the context-specific adjustment of control. These findings suggest that context-control associations that have proven to be adaptive in the past are continuously applied despite major changes in the task structure as long as the context-control associations remain the same.
认知控制可保护相关信息的处理免受无关信息的干扰。这种处理选择性的水平可以灵活地调整，以适应与特定情境相关的不同控制需求（例如，冲突频率），从而形成特定的情境 - 控制关联。在本研究中，我们调查了所习得的情境 - 控制需求在新情境中的稳健性和可转移性。在三个实验中，我们使用了一种情境特定比例一致性（CSPC）范式，其中每个情境（例如，位置）都与特定的冲突频率相关联，从而确定高控制需求和低控制需求。在学习阶段，建立情境与控制需求之间的关联。在随后的转移阶段，刺激 - 反应映射、整个任务集或情境 - 控制需求发生变化。结果显示情境 - 控制关联具有令人印象深刻的稳健性，因为学习阶段基于情境的控制调整几乎不受转移阶段新刺激和新任务的影响。只有情境 - 控制需求的改变才会消除基于情境的控制调整。这些发现表明，只要情境 - 控制关联保持不变，过去已证明具有适应性的情境 - 控制关联会在任务结构发生重大变化时持续应用。
