Congruency precues moderate item-specific proportion congruency effects

Abstract

The item-specific proportion congruency (ISPC) effect refers to the reduction in the Stroop effect for items (e.g., words) that mostly appear in an incongruent format, as compared to items that mostly appear in a congruent format. It is thought to demonstrate reactive control of word-reading processes. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that using explicit, trial-by-trial congruency precues to proactively guide attention during a color-word Stroop task could reduce the otherwise robust ISPC effect. In Experiment 1, the precueing manipulation was employed alongside a manipulation traditionally thought to influence proactive control of word-reading processes (i.e., list proportion congruence [list PC]). Precueing participants with 100 %-valid precues eliminated both the ISPC effect and the list PC effect. In Experiment 2, we used 70 %-valid congruency precues to direct participants to generally expect conflict or congruence on a given trial. ISPC effects were selectively reduced when the participants expected conflict. These results suggest that precueing influences engagement in proactive control and, as a result, reduces the impact of item-specific and list-based tendencies to direct attention toward or away from word reading.

Cortical and subcortical contributions to context-control learning

“…Congruency effects were found to be reduced for the items (face identities) that were frequently incongruent as compared to items that were rarely incongruent (Fig. 1b, c) , replicating a number of similar ISPC effect studies Bugg and Hutchison, 2013;Hutchison et al, 2016). Of particular note here is that the participants do not know which stimulus will occur on an upcoming trial, which means that the reduced congruency effects must stem from a rapid, bottom-up triggered retrieval of a cue-associated top-down control set at the item level.…”

Inducing Proactive Control Shifts in the AX-CPT

“…If it is the case that proactive and reactive control are dissociable, then cognitive control shifts may not be adequately described as shifts from reactive to proactive control or the reverse; instead, it is possible that an experimental manipulation could influence one mechanism but not the other. In other words, no-go trials may decrease the tendency of participants to use proactive control without increasing their reliance on reactive control, whereas strategy training may increase the tendency of participants to use proactive control without affecting their use of reactive control (although participants may tend not to engage in reactive control if they already implement proactive control; see Hutchison et al, 2016). This interpretation does not fundamentally alter the nature of our conclusions – the experimental manipulations presented here do elicit a more-proactive and a less-proactive pattern of results – but it could be interesting for future studies to further explore this line of research.…”

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Losing control: Mostly incongruent lists postpone, but do not eliminate, the Stroop effect

“…Entel, Tzelgov, and Bereby-Meyer (2014) found evidence for an LWPC-like effect with simple (although false) MC and MI instructions in a list of balanced trial types. Logan and Zbrodoff (1982) observed larger spatial Stroop effects when a cue was informative with respect to the type of trial (congruent or incongruent) than when it was uninformative (see also Bugg & Smallwood, 2016;Goldfarb & Henik, 2013;Hutchison, Bugg, Lim, & Olsen, 2016). Evidence for proactive control in Stroop tasks may require procedures that encourage the engagement of a specific mental set (before stimulus onset) by discouraging reactive control strategies.…”