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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 3/2017

28-03-2016 | Original Article

Post-conflict slowing after incongruent stimuli: from general to conflict-specific

Auteurs: Alodie Rey-Mermet, Beat Meier

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 3/2017

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Abstract

Encountering a cognitive conflict not only slows current performance, but it can also affect subsequent performance, in particular when the conflict is induced with bivalent stimuli (i.e., stimuli with relevant features for two different tasks) or with incongruent trials (i.e., stimuli with relevant features for two response alternatives). The post-conflict slowing following bivalent stimuli, called “bivalency effect”, affects all subsequent stimuli, irrespective of whether the subsequent stimuli share relevant features with the conflict stimuli. To date, it is unknown whether the conflict induced by incongruent stimuli results in a similar post-conflict slowing. To investigate this, we performed six experiments in which participants switched between two tasks. In one task, incongruent stimuli appeared occasionally; in the other task, stimuli shared no feature with the incongruent trials. The results showed an initial performance slowing that affected all tasks after incongruent trials. On further trials, however, the slowing only affected the task sharing features with the conflict stimuli. Therefore, the post-conflict slowing following incongruent stimuli is first general and then becomes conflict-specific across trials. These findings are discussed within current task switching and cognitive control accounts.
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Voetnoten
1
In the present study, participants were instructed to perform each task twice in succession (see Fig. 1). This results in switch and repetition trials which allows to examine whether responding to incongruent stimuli affects switch and repetition trials differentially, and thus contributes to switch costs (i.e., the slower performance on switch compared to repetition trials). We carried out all the analyses including switch vs. repetition as an additional independent variable. Overall, this resulted in the same pattern of findings.
 
2
In the analyses of the impact of incongruent trials on subsequent congruent trials, we focussed on reaction times data because accuracy on univalent and congruent trials was close to ceiling (mean accuracy 98 %) and even at ceiling in some conditions (see “Appendix”).
 
3
This may explain why the congruency effects were so large in the present study. It is possible that participants were slower on incongruent trials than on congruent trials not only because incongruent trials induced a conflict between two response alternatives but also because they induced an orienting response due to their infrequent occurrence.
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Post-conflict slowing after incongruent stimuli: from general to conflict-specific
Auteurs
Alodie Rey-Mermet
Beat Meier
Publicatiedatum
28-03-2016
Uitgeverij
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 3/2017
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0767-0

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