Attention on demand: Do people strategically heighten control when distraction is expected but rare?

People reliably relax cognitive control in response to pre-cues signaling a low likelihood of distraction (e.g., mostly congruent lists). However, there is limited evidence that people heighten control when pre-cued that distraction is likely (e.g., mostly incongruent lists). One possible explanation for this asymmetry pertains to floor effects in mostly incongruent lists, where interference is minimal even without pre-cues. Hence, we examined whether individuals would heighten control in mostly congruent lists—where control is typically relaxed—when given pre-cues and novel instructions emphasizing the difficulty posed by infrequent but disruptive incongruent trials.

In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants performed a color-word Stroop task with mostly congruent and mostly incongruent lists and encountered informative or uninformative pre-cues before each list. Instructions highlighted the difficulty of performing well in mostly congruent lists (1a) or mostly incongruent lists (1b). In Experiment 2, we additionally tested whether forming implementation intentions would enhance pre-cue use and facilitate on-demand control.

Comparisons across Experiments 1a and 1b provided modest evidence that participants heightened control in response to pre-cues in mostly congruent lists. Experiment 2 found no additional benefit from implementation intentions.

These findings suggest that perhaps individuals can heighten control on demand when distraction is infrequent but nonetheless disruptive, which may be critical given the potential to be caught off-guard in such conditions. However, other factors beyond list composition seem to contribute to the limited evidence of an on-demand heightening of control.