Comparing Conscious and Unconscious Conflict Adaptation

Abstract

Recently, researchers have been trying to unravel the function of consciousness by exploring whether unconscious information is (in)capable of exerting cognitive control. Theoretically, cognitive control functions, such as conflict adaptation, have often been assumed to require consciousness. However, empirical evidence on conscious versus unconscious conflict adaptation is highly contradictory and hitherto, only one study reliably demonstrated adaptation to unconscious conflict. Therefore, the current study wanted to shed further light on this debated issue. A masked and unmasked version of the priming paradigm were used to create unconscious and conscious conflict trials (i.e., when prime and target trigger opposite responses). In contrast to previous studies, the Stimulus Onset Asynchrony was kept constant in both conditions and neutral trials were added to the design in order to investigate the origin of the adaptation and to investigate the specific adaptation effects. Our results showed robust conflict adaptation effects following conscious and unconscious conflict. Furthermore, our results suggest that the adaptation elicited by the conflict, is mainly an adaptation of interference, not of facilitation. We can conclude that conflict adaptation can occur after unconscious conflict, which indicates that this expression of cognitive control is most likely not an exclusive function of consciousness.

Memory Recruitment

“…In 1957, market researcher James Vicary infamously claimed that tachistoscopic presentations of "eat popcorn" and "drink Coca Cola" during screenings of the movie Picnic increased sales of both products, but his claims were bogus (Pratkanis, 1992). Despite that initial stumble, evidence of unconscious priming is now firmly established (e.g., Dehaene et al, 1998), though specific effects are still occasionally attributed to conscious perception or awareness (e.g., Desender, Van Lierde, & Van den Bussche, 2013). Coming full circle, Vicary's claim has recently been substantiated: Subliminal primes can affect drink brand choice if participants are thirsty enough (Karremans, Stroebe, & Claus, 2006).…”

“…Fortunately, even if our account is incorrect, it is proved to be useful in helping motivate the investigation of an important new phenomenon, namely the adaptive modulation of masked priming by variations in prime context. We are pleased to note that whether such adaptive modulations reflect "smart" or "dumb" mechanisms are currently an active area of research (e.g., Desender et al, 2013).…”

“…Only recently has clear evidence of unconscious modulation of masked priming effects been reported (Desender et al, 2013). For example, Van Opstal et al (2011) found that a masked prime can bias either of two opposing responses depending on the unconscious context, even when the masked context manipulation did not affect overall reaction times and thus could not sponsor a response deadline shift, contrary to the ASE account.…”

Dissociating perception from action during conscious and unconscious conflict adaptation.

“…Many studies have now demonstrated that unconscious primes cannot only be processed at the perceptual and motor levels (e.g., Dehaene et al, 2004;Dehaene et al, 2001;Eimer & Schlaghecken, 2003), but also afford high-level processing, such as semantic (Van den Bussche, Notebaert, & Reynvoet, 2009) or emotional processing (Naccache et al, 2005). More important to note, recent studies also demonstrated that conflict adaptation may be triggered by unconscious stimuli (Desender, Van Lierde, & Van den Bussche, 2013;Francken, Gaal, & de Lange, 2011;van Gaal, Lamme, & Ridderinkhof, 2010). It is generally assumed that high-level cognitive functions subtended by prefrontal cortex such as cognitive control can only be elicited consciously (Dehaene & Changeux, 2011).…”

“…Most studies reporting unconscious conflict adaptation have used a 2 ϫ 2 stimuli/response mapping (Desender et al, 2013;van Gaal et al, 2010; but see Kunde, 2003), whereas studies in which adaptation was restricted to conscious primes typically used larger stimulus sets (e.g., Ansorge et al, 2011;Frings & Wentura, 2008;Greenwald, Draine, & Abrams, 1996). If this difference is of crucial importance, it might be the case that only the overall conflict is susceptible to unconsciously triggering adaptation, whereas the more specific types may not be.…”