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08-11-2016 | Original Article

Conflict and disfluency as aversive signals: context-specific processing adjustments are modulated by affective location associations

Auteurs: Gesine Dreisbach, Anna-Lena Reindl, Rico Fischer

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 2/2018

Abstract

Context-specific processing adjustments are one signature feature of flexible human action control. However, up to now the precise mechanisms underlying these adjustments are not fully understood. Here it is argued that aversive signals produced by conflict- or disfluency-experience originally motivate such context-specific processing adjustments. We tested whether the efficiency of the aversive conflict signal for control adaptation depends on the affective nature of the context it is presented in. In two experiments, high vs. low proportions of aversive signals (Experiment 1: conflict trials; Experiment 2: disfluent trials) were presented either above or below the screen center. This location manipulation was motivated by existing evidence that verticality is generally associated with affective valence with up being positive and down being negative. From there it was hypothesized that the aversive signals would lose their trigger function for processing adjustments when presented at the lower (i.e., more negative) location. This should then result in a reduced context-specific proportion effect when the high proportion of aversive signals was presented at the lower location. Results fully confirmed the predictions. In both experiments, the location-specific proportion effects were only present when the high proportion of aversive signals occurred at the more positive location above but were reduced (Experiment 1) or even eliminated (Experiment 2) when the high proportion occurred at the more negative location below. This interaction of processing adjustments with affective background contexts can thus be taken as further hint for an affective origin of control adaptations.

vorige artikel Modulating adaptation to emotional faces by spatial frequency filtering

volgende artikel The test of both worlds: identifying feature binding and control processes in congruency sequence tasks by means of action dynamics

Reducing the color saturation of Stroop color words and color flanker stimuli reduces fluency of processing of both, the relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimension. That way, conflict strength was not influenced by this manipulation. Therefore, the observed modulation of conflict adaptation by fluency of processing cannot be ascribed to different conflict strength in fluent and disfluent runs.

In our own study (Fischer et al., 2014), we investigated location-specific adaptation to between task interferences in a dual-task paradigm. During preparation of this manuscript we looked into the data to check for possible effects of the specific vertical location (up vs. down) but did not find any hint into one or the other direction. However, even if we postulate that dual-task interference is also experienced as negative, this was not really to be expected in the first place, given the specific stimulus arrangement within the dual-task paradigm we used. Within each vertical location (up vs. down) the specific stimuli for Task 1 and Task 2 also always occurred one above the other (with T1 always being presented slightly in time before and spatially above T2). So in fact, in relation to T2, T1 was always presented at the more positive location.

There exists an ongoing debate about whether this association is truly embodied or established through the experience of linguistic metaphors (e.g., Casasanto, 2009). We will not take sides here because this is not critical for our research question.

Due to a programming error, 8 of the 16 practice trials of this learning session were accidentally drawn from the trial list defining the 160 trials presented above and another 8 trials were drawn from the trials list defining the 160 trials presented below. As a consequence, a random 8 out of 160 trials in each block of the learning session were repeated, resulting in slight deviations from the intended PC at a given location. Therefore, the frequent PC by location combination of intended 128 trials actually varied between 125 and 132 trials and the infrequent PC by location combination of intended 32 trials actually varied between 28 and 35 trials between participants. Note that in the test session the stimulus presentation per condition was perfectly balanced as described in the main text.

Diede and Bugg (2016) found no CSPC effects for locations when locations of opposing biases appeared relatively close to one another in upper (e.g., mostly congruent) and lower (e.g., mostly incongruent) locations near the center of the screen. This might seem at odds with our finding (our locations were also very close to each other and only 10 mm from the center screen). However, one difference between studies is that Diede and Bugg additionally had outer locations that appeared near the upper and lower edge of screen on the mostly congruent vs. mostly incongruent half making the middle locations relatively closer to one another than the outer locations. This might be taken as evidence that the relative location (rather than the absolute location up vs. down) is the critical factor that determines a vertical location’s affective association. We thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this.

In a pilot experiment, we presented these 16 number words (8 fluent and 8 disfluent) as primes that were followed by Chinese characters (see Fritz & Dreisbach, 2013) as targets in an affective priming paradigm (Fazio, 2001). 19 participants (mean age 23.15, 16 female) judged the affective valence of the neutral target stimuli. As expected, we found significantly more negative judgments following disfluent primes than following fluent primes (54 vs. 48 %, t(18) = 2.05, p = .025 (one-tailed), thereby confirming the aversive nature of the disfluency manipulation.

Due to the same programming error (see footnote 4) there was a slight imbalance of the intended PC at a given location. The frequent PC by location combination of intended 128 trials actually again varied between 125 and 132 trials and the infrequent PC by location combination of intended 32 trials actually again varied between 28 and 35 trials between participants. Trial procedure in the test session was again perfectly balanced as intended.

It should be noted that alternative accounts emphasize the role of low-level contingency learning as main mechanisms of CSPC effects (e.g., Schmidt, 2013; Schmidt & Besner, 2008). The central idea is that in proportion congruence manipulations some stimulus–response compounds are sometimes presented more often than others. Repetition confounds of stimulus features may thus serve as direct predictor for corresponding responses without the need for context-specific control adjustments. This concern is especially relevant when using a small amount of stimuli and responses (Bugg & Hutchison, 2013). In the present CSPC study, however, we used 8 stimuli that all served equally often as congruent/fluent vs. incongruent/disfluent stimuli and occurred equally often at either locations. Although, this does not preclude the vague possibility of binding, the 8(Stimuli) × 2(Simon location) x 2(Presentation location) and the resulting 32 individual combinations make response predictions on the basis of stimulus features rather unlikely. Furthermore, CSPC effects have been demonstrated for contingency-unbiased items (Crump & Milliken, 2009), which precludes a contingency learning account.

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Titel: Conflict and disfluency as aversive signals: context-specific processing adjustments are modulated by affective location associations
Auteurs: Gesine Dreisbach
Anna-Lena Reindl
Rico Fischer
Publicatiedatum: 08-11-2016
Uitgeverij: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 2/2018
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0822-x

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