Attention modulation by proportion congruency: The asymmetrical list shifting effect.

Abstract

Proportion congruency effects represent hallmark phenomena in current theorizing about cognitive control. This is based on the notion that proportion congruency determines the relative levels of attention to relevant and irrelevant information in conflict tasks. However, little empirical evidence exists that uniquely supports such an attention modulation account; moreover, a rivaling account was recently proposed that attributes the effect of proportion congruency to mere contingency learning. In the present study, the influences of shifts in list-wide (Experiment 1) or item-specific (Experiment 2) proportion congruency were investigated. As predicted by attention modulation but not by contingency learning, strong asymmetries were observed in such shifting: An increase in the proportion of congruent trials had only limited impact on the size of the congruency effect when participants were initially trained with a mostly incongruent list, but the impact was substantial for an equivalent increase of incongruent trials when participants were initially trained with a mostly congruent list. This asymmetrical list shifting effect directly supports attention modulation by proportion congruency manipulations and as such provides a novel tool for exploring cognitive control. Implications of our findings for existing theories of cognitive control are discussed.

Time-out for conflict monitoring theory: Preventing rhythmic biases eliminates the list-level proportion congruent effect.

“…The same is true of Experiment 2 to follow. However, for the interested reader, this analysis did replicate the asymmetric list shifting effect (Abrahamse et al, 2013), though this effect is difficult to interpret due to a practice confound (Schmidt, 2016).…”

“…Specifically, distracting words accurately predict the correct response on congruent trials in the mostly congruent condition, and (in many task variants) accurately predict a specific incongruent response in the mostly incongruent condition (e.g., if "red" is presented most often in yellow). Considerable debate has focussed on whether contingency learning provides a sufficient account of the PC effect, or whether conflict adaptation must also be assumed (e.g., Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, & Risko, 2013;Atalay & Misirlisoy, 2012, 2014Bugg, 2014Bugg, , 2015Bugg & Hutchison, 2013;Bugg, Jacoby, & Chanani, 2011;Grandjean et al, 2013;Hazeltine & Mordkoff, 2014;Levin & Tzelgov, 2016;Schmidt, 2013aSchmidt, , 2014a.…”

The Parallel Episodic Processing (PEP) model 2.0: A single computational model of stimulus-response binding, contingency learning, power curves, and mixing costs

“…The asymmetric list shifting effect is the observation that the congruency effect decreases more when switching from a mostly congruent to a mostly incongruent block than it increases when switching from a mostly incongruent block to a mostly congruent block (Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, & Risko, 2013). This was originally argued to be due to attention being allowed to the word in an initial mostly congruent block, which is then forced away when switching to a mostly incongruent block.…”

Generalizing attentional control across dimensions and tasks: Evidence from transfer of proportion-congruent effects

“…Independent support for a flexible control account was presented by Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, and Risko (2013). They demonstrated that participants who started with a mostly incongruent list did not readjust (i.e., the congruency effect did not increase) when a new mostly congruent list followed, whereas participants who started with a mostly congruent list did readjust (i.e., the congruency effect decreased) when a mostly incongruent list followed.…”