Context, Conflict, and Control

Bugg, Julie M.

doi:10.1002/9781118920497.ch5

Cited by 34 publications

(55 citation statements)

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“…The challenge is that such a study would require more than 400 subjects to achieve .80 power, assuming a three-way interaction of the size one could expect based on the current data. Third, we followed the approach used in prior studies to index list-level control and this approach uses a design that is not optimised for examining the contribution of congruency sequence effects to the critical LWPC patterns (for reviews, see Bugg, 2017; Bugg & Crump, 2012; see also Braem et al, 2019). In the one study that evaluated such effects, Hutchison (2011) observed LWPC effects on diagnostic items in a Stroop task and found that LWPC effects occurred regardless of preceding trial type and could not be completely explained by congruency sequence effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A relatively straightforward manipulation that has effectively isolated list-level and item-level control in the Stroop task is the proportion congruence manipulation, which varies the relative proportion of congruent to incongruent trials (see Bugg, 2012, 2017; Bugg & Crump, 2012). The term isolate, here, refers to the ability to measure cognitive control independent of confounds or alternative mechanisms that can otherwise explain the effect (e.g., item-specific contingency learning; Schmidt & Besner, 2008).…”

Section: Use Of Proportion Congruence Manipulations To Isolate Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Arguably, the most progress has been made in the context of the Stroop task, where participants name the ink colour of colour words that are congruent (e.g., RED in red ink) or incongruent (e.g., BLUE in red ink). Variants have been developed that isolate item-level (item-specific) and list-level (list-wide) control of Stroop interference (for reviews, see Bugg, 2017; Bugg & Crump, 2012; see also Crump & Milliken, 2009, for a variant that isolates context-level control). Contrasting performance between these two variants (e.g., Bugg, 2014a, 2014b; Gonthier et al, 2016) has enabled researchers to further theoretical understanding of the characteristics of reactive and proactive control, respectively.…”

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confidence: 99%

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List-level control in the flanker task

Bugg

Gonthier

2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Current theories posit multiple levels of cognitive control for resolving conflict, including list-level control: the global or proactive biasing of attention across a list of trials. However, to date, evidence for pure list-level control has largely been confined to the Stroop task. Our goals were twofold: (a) test the generality of theoretical accounts by seeking evidence for list-level control in the letter flanker task, using an established method involving diagnostic items, and investigating the conditions under which list-level control may and may not be observed and (b) develop and test a potential solution to the challenge of isolating list-level control in tasks with a relatively limited set of stimuli and responses such as arrow flanker. Our key findings were that list-level control was observed for the first time in a letter flanker task on diagnostic items (Experiment 1), and it was not observed when the design was altered to encourage learning and use of simple stimulus–response associations (Experiment 2). These findings support the generalisability of current theoretical accounts positing dual-mechanisms or multiple levels of control, and the associations as antagonists to control account positing that list-level control may be a last resort, to conflict tasks besides Stroop. List-level control was also observed in the arrow flanker task using a modified design (Experiment 3), which could be extended to other conflict tasks with limited sets of stimuli (four or fewer), although this solution is not entirely free of confounds.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Use Of Proportion Congruence Manipulations To Isolate Levelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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List-level control in the flanker task

Bugg

Gonthier

2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…This type of context-control learning has been demonstrated in a number of studies where implicit probabilistic cues (e.g., stimulus location, color, trial type history, or sensory modality) have been found to facilitate the retrieval of context-appropriate attentional control states (e.g., high attentional focus) (for reviews, see Bugg, 2017; Bugg & Crump, 2012). For instance, Stroop stimuli presented at a specific location (e.g., top-right of screen) that is mostly associated with higher control-demand (frequent incongruent trials) are processed more efficiently (producing smaller Stroop effects) relative to those presented in a location that is mostly associated with lower control-demand (frequent congruent trials).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Control by association: Transfer of implicitly primed attentional states across linked stimuli

2018

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Although cognitive control has traditionally been viewed in opposition to associative learning, recent studies show that people can learn to link particular stimuli with specific cognitive control states (e.g., high attentional selectivity). Here, we tested whether such learned stimulus-control associations can transfer across paired-associates. In the Stimulus-Stimulus (S-S) Association phase, specific face or house images repeatedly preceded the presentation of particular scene stimuli, creating paired face/house-scene associates in memory. The Stimulus-Control (S-C) Association phase then associated these scenes with different attentional control states by probabilistically biasing specific scenes to mostly precede either congruent or incongruent trials in a Stroop task. Finally, in the Stimulus-Control Transfer (S-CT) phase, the faces and houses from the S-S phase preceded Stroop trials but were not predictive of congruency, testing whether stimulus-control associations would transfer from scenes to their associated face/house stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 3, we found that learned implicit stimulus-control associations could transfer across closely linked cues, and in Experiment 2, we showed that this transfer depended on the memory associations formed in the S-S phase. While this form of transfer learning has previously been demonstrated for stimulus-reward associations, the present study provides the first evidence for the associative transfer of stimulus-control associations across arbitrarily linked stimuli. This work demonstrates how people can learn to implicitly adapt their processing strategies in a flexible context-dependent manner and establishes a novel learning mechanism supporting the generalization of cognitive control.

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“…In such tasks, so-called congruency effects (i.e., slower reaction times (RT) and increased error rates on incongruent relative to congruent trials) are generally taken as a measure of the capacity to override interference (or "conflict") between target and distractor stimulus features, reflecting controlled processing. The magnitude of such effects is significantly reduced or abolished for stimuli presented in contexts (e.g., locations) associated with frequent conflict-even though participants are unaware of any contextual variation in conflict frequency [33][34][35][36]. This "context-specific proportion congruent" (CSPC) effect is thought to capture how strongly individuals rely on environmental information to automatically adjust top-down control in accordance with current contextual demands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior

et al. 2020

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It is a widely held view that humans have control over their food choices and consumption. However, research also suggests that eating behavior is often triggered by contextual cues and guided by automaticities and habits. Interestingly, the dichotomy between automatic and controlled processing has recently been challenged, suggesting that they may be intertwined. In a large female sample (n = 567), we investigated the hypothesis that task-based and self-reported measures of automatic and controlled processing would interact and impact self-reported eating behavior. Results analyzed via structural equation modeling suggest that automatic, but not controlled processing, during a modified flanker task, including a context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) manipulation, was inversely associated with self-reported self-control. The influence of self-control on unhealthy eating behavior (i.e., uncontrolled and emotional eating, heightened consumption of fat and sugar) was only indirect via habitual behavior, which itself had a strong direct impact. Unhealthy eating was further associated with real-life outcomes (e.g., body mass index (BMI)). Our findings suggest that eating behavior may indeed be guided primarily by automaticities and habits, whereas self-control might facilitate this association. Having self-control over eating might therefore be most effective by avoiding contextual cues eliciting undesired automatic behavior and establishing habits that serve long-term goals.

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Context, Conflict, and Control

Cited by 34 publications

References 50 publications

List-level control in the flanker task

List-level control in the flanker task

Control by association: Transfer of implicitly primed attentional states across linked stimuli

Automatic and Controlled Processing: Implications for Eating Behavior

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