Does incidental sequence learning allow us to better manage upcoming conflicting events?
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Does incidental sequence learning allow us to better manage upcoming conflicting events? Luis Jiménez1 · Elger Abrahamse2,3 · Cástor Méndez1 · Senne Braem4 Received: 5 January 2019 / Accepted: 13 May 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Recent proposals emphasize the role of learning in empirical markers of conflict adaptation. Some of these proposals are rooted in the assumption that contingency learning works not only on stimulus–response events but also on covert processes such as selective attention. In the present study, we explored how these learning processes may apply to trial-to-trial modulations of selective attention, mirroring the sequential nature of congruency sequence effects. Two groups of participants performed a four-choice Stroop task in which the color to which they responded on each trial acted as a probabilistic predictor either of the external response to be emitted on the next trial, or the congruency level (and therefore control demands) on the next trial. The results showed clear effects of sequence learning for external responses, but no evidence of learning about sequential stimulus–conflict associations. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to other learningbased phenomena of conflict adaptation and suggest that learning of stimulus–control associations is strongly constrained by event boundaries.
Conflict adaptation Across all levels of information processing, cognitive agents can be exposed to interference that jeopardizes goal-directed selection processes. In the laboratory, such interference can be studied using so-called conflict tasks. For example, in the classic Stroop task (MacLeod, 1992; Stroop, 1935) responding to the color in which a word is presented (i.e., the goal) can suffer interference from the meaning of that word when it refers to a different color (e.g., ‘RED’ printed in blue), because word reading occurs automatically. This interference can be reliably captured in performance measures, as people are often slower and/or less accurate on such The datasets generated during the current study are available in the Open Science Framework repository, https://osf.io/x879s/. * Luis Jiménez [email protected] 1
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
2
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language, Bilbao, Spain
3
IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
4
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
incompatible color–word pairings as compared to cases in which color and meaning are compatible (i.e., ‘RED’ printed in red). This performance difference is referred to as the congruency effect. In order to achieve goal-directed behavior in the face of interference, the brain is believed to be equipped with various cognitive control processes. One such process has been referred to as conflict adaptation, which concerns the brain’s ability to swiftly adjust attentional settings when interference or ‘conflict’ is detected in ord
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