Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2023 Mar;60(3):e14195. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14195. Epub 2022 Oct 18.
The conflict monitoring theory postulates that conflict detection is initiated in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), indexed by midfrontal theta oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Recent research suggested that distractor detection (in the Eriksen flanker task) can be initiated relatively early by attentional control processes in the occipital lobe. Whether attentional control is also involved in the detection of stimulus-response overlapping conflict in the Stroop task is yet unclear. In the present study, we analyzed EEG time-frequency data (N = 47) to investigate the contribution of early attentional control processes to the detection of response conflict and semantic conflict in a lateralized version of the color-word Stroop task. The behavioral results showed significant conflict effects in response times (RT). The EEG results showed a prominent midfrontal response conflict effect in total theta power (4-8 Hz). Importantly, detection of response conflict and semantic conflict was observed in posterior delta/theta power (2-8 Hz), which was lateralized depending on the presentation side of the irrelevant Stroop words. In explorative regression analysis, both the midfrontal and the posterior response conflict effects predicted the size of response conflict errors. These results suggest that attentional control processes in posterior areas contribute to the initiation of response-conflict detection in the Stroop task. The findings are consistent with the idea of a representational link between stimulus and response features, known as the common coding principle.
冲突监测理论假设，冲突检测是在前扣带皮层（ACC）中发起的，其标志是脑电图（EEG）中的中额theta 振荡。最近的研究表明，在艾瑞克森（Eriksen）侧翼任务中，分心物检测可以通过枕叶中的注意力控制过程相对较早地发起。在 Stroop 任务中，注意控制是否也参与了刺激-反应重叠冲突的检测尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们分析了 EEG 时频数据（N=47），以研究早期注意控制过程对侧化颜色-词 Stroop 任务中反应冲突和语义冲突检测的贡献。行为结果显示反应时（RT）存在显著的冲突效应。脑电图结果显示总 theta 功率（4-8 Hz）中存在显著的中额反应冲突效应。重要的是，在后 delta/theta 功率（2-8 Hz）中观察到了反应冲突和语义冲突的检测，这取决于无关 Stroop 词的呈现侧而偏向一侧。在探索性回归分析中，中额和后额反应冲突效应均预测了反应冲突错误的大小。这些结果表明，后区的注意力控制过程有助于发起 Stroop 任务中的反应冲突检测。这些发现与刺激和反应特征之间存在代表性联系的观点一致，即共同编码原则。
