Cognitive effort is modulated outside of the explicit awareness of conflict frequency: Evidence from pupillometry.

Abstract

Classic theories of cognitive control conceptualized controlled processes as slow, strategic, and willful, with automatic processes being fast and effortless. The context-specific proportion compatibility (CSPC) effect, the reduction in the compatibility effect in a context (e.g., location) associated with a high relative to low likelihood of conflict, challenged classic theories by demonstrating fast and flexible control that appears to operate outside of conscious awareness. Two theoretical questions yet to be addressed are whether the CSPC effect is accompanied by context-dependent variation in effort, and whether the exertion of effort depends on explicit awareness of context-specific task demands. To address these questions, pupil diameter was measured during a CSPC paradigm. Stimuli were randomly presented in either a mostly compatible location or a mostly incompatible location. Replicating prior research, the CSPC effect was found. The novel finding was that pupil diameter was greater in the mostly incompatible location compared to the mostly compatible location, despite participants’ lack of awareness of context-specific task demands. Additionally, this difference occurred regardless of trial type or a preceding switch in location. These patterns support the view that context (location) dictates selection of optimal attentional settings in the CSPC paradigm, and varying levels of effort and performance accompany these settings. Theoretically, these patterns imply that cognitive control may operate fast, flexibly, and outside of awareness, but not effortlessly.

The face of control: Corrugator supercilii tracks aversive conflict signals in the service of adaptive cognitive control

“…Physiological measures in previous studies using Stroop‐like conflict tasks have already provided evidence that incongruent relative to congruent trials are accompanied by increased pupil dilation (Braem, Coenen, Bombeke, van Bochove, & Notebaert, ; D’Ascenzo, Iani, Guidotti, Laeng, & Rubichi, ; Diede & Bugg, ; Murphy, Van Moort, & Nieuwenhuis, ; van Steenbergen & Band, ; Wessel, Danielmeier, & Ullsperger, ), skin conductance response (Kobayashi, Yoshino, Takahashi, & Nomura, ), and increased heart‐rate slowing (Spapé & Ravaja, ; Spruit, Wilderjans, & van Steenbergen, ). The abovementioned measures are likely to reflect conflict‐modulated processes of attention and arousal rather than a hedonic or valence component.…”

Cognitive Processing dissociation by mental effort manipulation in long demanding tasks

“…In this experiment, we tried to verify if the manipulation of the automatic tasks transformed them into tasks closer to a controlled demand, also investigating the possibility of a continuum of mental effort (Bugg et al 2008;Bugg and Crump 2012;Diede and Bugg 2017;Jacoby et al 2003). The results of the present study can be interpreted as demonstrating that cognitive processing does not follow an explicit dual logic, with some manipulation making easy tasks more demanding, but still not enough for an intense mental effort allocation as discussed in previous studies (Diede and Bugg 2017;Foroughi et al 2017;Hommel 2007;Konishi et al 2015).…”

“…2008;Bugg and Crump 2012;Diede and Bugg 2017;Egner 2008). Using pupillometry, Diede and Bugg (2017) demonstrated an example of cognitive control without awareness. Their findings demonstrate that cognitive control may be fast, flexible, and operate outside of awareness, but not effortlessly.…”

Boundary conditions for the influence of spatial proximity on context-specific attentional settings

“…That it is genuine is supported by findings demonstrating that it cannot be attributed to the priming of responses following an incompatible stimulus (Crump et al, 2006;cf. Mayr, Awh, & Laurey, 2003) or to a pure stimulus-response learning mechanism (Diede & Bugg, 2017). That it is reactive is based on various features of the paradigm: The overall proportion of compatible to incompatible stimuli is 50%, and there is a 50% likelihood that a given stimulus will appear in either context (lower vs. upper), such that participants cannot anticipate prior to stimulus onset which attentional setting should be engaged (see Bugg & Crump, 2012).…”

“…Indeed, if a uniform attentional setting were applied throughout the task (e.g., proactively), a CSPC effect would not be observed-the compatibility effect would be equivalent across locations. Although there is some evidence that the attentional setting adopted in the mostly incompatible location is associated with more effort than the setting adopted in the mostly compatible location (Diede & Bugg, 2017), context-specific modulations of control appear to occur implicitly. Participants have been unable to retrospectively report differences in the proportions of compatible trials between contexts in CSPC paradigms (Crump, Vaquero, & Milliken, 2008;Diede & Bugg, 2016; but see Schouppe, Ridderinkhof, Verguts, & Notebaert, 2014).…”