Moretti Luca, Koch Iring
Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Jaegerstrasse 17/19, 52066, Aachen, Germany.
Mem Cognit. 2025 Sep 15. doi: 10.3758/s13421-025-01782-1.
The term conflict adaptation refers to the up- or down-regulation of control processes depending on the likelihood and recency of conflict occurrence. While most research on conflict adaptation has examined single-task settings (e.g., the Stroop paradigm), in a recent study we investigated whether similar phenomena are also present in task switching. In that study, we asked whether control over stimulus-induced task conflict is modulated depending on its frequency. We operationalized stimulus-induced task conflict with the valency effect, namely the performance difference between bivalent-congruent trials (i.e., stimuli affording two tasks but only one correct response) and univalent trials (i.e., stimuli affording one task). Manipulating the proportion of bivalent trials across blocks, we found that the valency effect was reduced in majority-bivalent blocks, suggesting that task-conflict control is upregulated under high-conflict conditions. Building on these findings, the present study presents three experiments designed to uncover the mechanisms behind task-conflict control adaptation in task switching. In particular, we aimed to assess whether task-conflict control is adapted in a transient or in a sustained fashion. In Experiment 1, we ruled out the possibility that control adaptation arises from transient increases in attentional biasing following cue onset. In Experiments 2a and 2b we found evidence that the mechanisms responsible for upregulating task-conflict control act in a task-specific fashion, suggesting that, contrary to single-task paradigms, control adaptation occurs transiently rather than sustainedly. We conclude that in task-switching contexts, conflict adaptation is achieved by modulating reactive control mechanisms triggered after stimulus onset.
冲突适应这一术语指的是根据冲突发生的可能性和近期性对控制过程进行上调或下调。虽然大多数关于冲突适应的研究都考察了单任务设置（例如，斯特鲁普范式），但在最近的一项研究中，我们调查了任务切换中是否也存在类似现象。在该研究中，我们询问对刺激诱发的任务冲突的控制是否会根据其频率进行调节。我们用效价效应来操作化刺激诱发的任务冲突，即二价一致试验（即提供两项任务但只有一个正确反应的刺激）和单价试验（即提供一项任务的刺激）之间的表现差异。通过操纵各块中二价试验的比例，我们发现多数二价块中的效价效应降低了，这表明在高冲突条件下任务冲突控制被上调。基于这些发现，本研究提出了三个实验，旨在揭示任务切换中任务冲突控制适应背后的机制。具体而言，我们旨在评估任务冲突控制是通过瞬时方式还是持续方式进行适应的。在实验1中，我们排除了控制适应源于线索出现后注意力偏向的瞬时增加的可能性。在实验2a和2b中，我们发现有证据表明负责上调任务冲突控制的机制以任务特定的方式起作用，这表明与单任务范式相反，控制适应是瞬时发生而不是持续发生的。我们得出结论，在任务切换情境中，冲突适应是通过调节刺激出现后触发的反应性控制机制来实现的。
