Adjustments of selective attention to response conflict – controlling for perceptual conflict, target-distractor identity, and congruency level sequence pertaining to the congruency sequence effect

Abstract

The congruency sequence effect (CSE) describes the performance difference of congruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with the same response) compared to incongruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with different responses) as a function of the preceding congruency level (congruent trials relative to incongruent trials). The CSE is commonly interpreted as a measure of conflict-induced attentional adjustment. Although previous research has made substantial progress aiming at controlling for alternative explanations of the CSE, both task-specific and fundamental confounds have remained. In the current study, we used a temporal flanker task, in which two stimuli (i.e., distractor and target) are presented in rapid succession, and extended previous demonstrations of a CSE in flanker tasks by deconfounding target-distractor congruency from perceptual similarity. Using a four-choice task, we could also control for the reversal of distractor-response priming after incongruent trials (which is only feasible in two-choice tasks). Furthermore, we controlled for all confounds based on the sequence (i.e., repetition versus alternation) of the congruency level – such as feature sequence effects, distractor-response contingency switch costs, or temporal learning – by probing the allocation of attention to the points in time of presentation of the first and the second stimulus of a trial. This was achieved by intermixing trials of a temporal search task. The performance accuracy results in this task were consistent with a stronger attentional bias in favor of the target stimulus’ temporal position after incongruent than after congruent trials.

Attentional adjustment in priming tasks: control strategies depend on context

“…Despite this evidence for temporal order control, however, Tomat et al (2021) also observed a tendency (significant in Experiments 2 and 3) for a larger CSE in stimulus categoryorder repetition than in category-order alternation trials, a result pattern consistent with the assumption of combined effects of temporal order control and control applied to the processing of different stimulus categories. Thus, whereas Dignath et al found no evidence for feature-based control (i.e., absence of the CSE in order-alternation trials), the reduction of the CSE in category-alternation trials in Tomat et al's (2021) study is consistent with an additional category-or feature-based control mechanism working alongside with temporal order control.…”

“…Although various conflict tasks and stimulus presentation procedures have been used to investigate the CSE, priming protocols, in which a distractor and a target stimulus object are presented successively, received particular attention in recent years. Empirically, the CSE has consistently been observed in such situations (e.g., Hazeltine et al 2011;Schmidt and Weissman 2014;Tomat et al 2020Tomat et al , 2021more robust than in other confound-minimized conflict tasks (Weissman et al 2014). Methodologically, successive stimulus presentation has additional advantages, however, such as allowing the investigation of distractor processing before target onset by physiological measures.…”

“…First, target and distractor stimuli in typical priming procedures previously used tend to be associated with additional discriminative features, such as size (e.g., Schmidt and Weissman 2014;Weissman et al 2015), allowing for the possibility that attentional selection is based on these features rather than on temporal order. Second, even if no additional discriminative features are present-as is the case in the "temporal flanker task" introduced by Hazeltine et al (2011)-various confounds with sequences of low-level features and distractor-related contingencies need to be controlled to preclude attributing the CSE to non-attentional processes (see Braem et al 2019, for an overview, and see Tomat et al 2020Tomat et al , 2021, for discussion of these issues, focusing on priming procedures).…”

“…Although trials in which the target was presented before the distractor yielded a generally lower congruency effect than trials in which the distractor preceded the target, reliable CSEs were observed for both types of trials, but only when the presentation order was repeated from the preceding trial. Additional evidence for temporal order control comes from a temporal flanker task study by Tomat et al (2021). In that study, the distractor was presented first, and the target was presented second throughout the whole experimental session.…”

“…In light of the open questions regarding the mechanism underlying the CSE in a priming task with long SOA and the potential of the task developed by Tomat et al (2021) for providing evidence of the application of multiple control strategies, the current study aimed at investigating the interplay of temporal order control and feature-or category-based control under conditions of long distractor-target SOA. To this end, we replicated Experiment 2 of Tomat et al (2021) (i.e., four-choice temporal flanker task with varying order of stimulus categories assigned to the target and the distractor on a trial, allowing for a confound-minimizing data analysis), replacing the short SOA used in that study with a long SOA of 1000 ms. As laid out above, observing a larger CSE in category-order repetition trials than in category-order alternation trials would be consistent with the application of multiple control strategies (one based on temporal order and one based on stimulus category). Furthermore, as our task involved a four-choice decision, a reversal of the congruency effect after incongruent trials could not be attributed to a priming reversal strategy and would thus strongly corroborate doubts concerning the attentional adjustment account of the CSE.…”