Yang Qian, Pourtois Gilles
Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China.
Psychol Res. 2022 Mar;86(2):474-484. doi: 10.1007/s00426-021-01505-6. Epub 2021 Mar 29.
The congruency sequence effect (CSE) refers to facilitated conflict processing following incongruent than congruent trials, and reflects enhanced cognitive control during conflict processing. Although this effect is mostly conceived as being reactive, proactive control can also unlock it under specific circumstances according to previous studies (e.g., when an informative cue is used). However, whether or not humans can flexibly switch between these two complementing control modes remains unclear. To address this question, 55 participants completed the confound-minimized Stroop task in different blocks where the cue about the upcoming trial's congruency was either informative or not, and orthogonally to it, the cue-stimulus interval (CSI) was either short or long. We tested if the size of the CSE could change depending on the specific combination of these two factors, which would indicate that cognitive control depends on the subtle balance between reactive and proactive control, and is therefore flexible. However, results showed that the CSE was significant and comparable across the four combinations of CSI and Cue type, suggesting that it primarily stemmed from reactive control. We discuss our results against the dual mechanism of control (DMC) framework (Braver in Trends Cogn Sci 16:106-113, 2012).
一致性序列效应（CSE）是指在不一致试验之后比一致试验更容易进行冲突处理，反映了冲突处理过程中认知控制的增强。尽管这种效应大多被认为是反应性的，但根据以往的研究，在特定情况下（例如，当使用信息性线索时），前瞻性控制也可以引发这种效应。然而，人类是否能够在这两种互补的控制模式之间灵活切换仍不清楚。为了解决这个问题，55名参与者在不同的组块中完成了混淆最小化的Stroop任务，其中关于即将到来的试验一致性的线索要么是信息性的，要么不是，并且与之正交的是，线索-刺激间隔（CSI）要么短要么长。我们测试了CSE的大小是否会根据这两个因素的特定组合而变化，这将表明认知控制取决于反应性控制和前瞻性控制之间的微妙平衡，因此是灵活的。然而，结果表明，CSE在CSI和线索类型的四种组合中都是显著的且相当，这表明它主要源于反应性控制。我们根据双重控制机制（DMC）框架（Braver，《认知科学趋势》，2012年，第16卷，第106 - 113页）讨论了我们的结果。
