Not My Problem: Vicarious Conflict Adaptation with Human and Virtual Co-actors

Abstract

The Simon effect refers to an incompatibility between stimulus and response locations resulting in a conflict situation and, consequently, slower responses. Like other conflict effects, it is commonly reduced after repetitions, suggesting an executive control ability, which flexibly rewires cognitive processing and adapts to conflict. Interestingly, conflict is not necessarily individually defined: the Social Simon effect refers to a scenario where two people who share a task show a conflict effect where a single person does not. Recent studies showed these observations might converge into what could be called vicarious conflict adaptation, with evidence indicating that observing someone else's conflict may subsequently reduce one's own. While plausible, there is reason for doubt: both the social aspect of the Simon Effect, and the degree to which executive control accounts for the conflict adaptation effect, have become foci of debate in recent studies. Here, we present two experiments that were designed to test the social dimension of the effect by varying the social relationship between the actor and the co-actor. In Experiment 1, participants performed a conflict task with a virtual co-actor, while the actor-observer relationship was manipulated as a function of the similarity between response modalities. In Experiment 2, the same task was performed both with a virtual and with a human co-actor, while heart-rate measurements were taken to measure the impact of observed conflict on autonomous activity. While both experiments replicated the interpersonal conflict adaptation effects, neither showed evidence of the critical social dimension. We consider the findings as demonstrating that vicarious conflict adaptation does not rely on the social relationship between the actor and co-actor.

Emotion and conflict adaptation: the role of phasic arousal and self-relevance

“…This further extends earlier literature that has studied the influence of other person's errors (Koban & Pourtois, 2014) and conflict (e.g. Liepelt, Wenke, Fischer, & Prinz, 2011Spapé & Ravaja, 2016;Winkel et al, 2009) on cognitive control outside the context of an emotional manipulation.…”

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.…”

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

“…Physiological measures in previous studies using Strooplike conflict tasks have already provided evidence that incongruent relative to congruent trials are accompanied by increased pupil dilation (Braem, Coenen, Bombeke, van Bochove, & Notebaert, 2015;D'Ascenzo, Iani, Guidotti, Laeng, & Rubichi, 2016;Diede & Bugg, 2017;Murphy, Van Moort, & Nieuwenhuis, 2016;van Steenbergen & Band, 2013;Wessel, Danielmeier, & Ullsperger, 2011), skin conductance response (Kobayashi, Yoshino, Takahashi, & Nomura, 2007), and increased heart-rate slowing (Spapé & Ravaja, 2016;Spruit, Wilderjans, & van Steenbergen, 2018). The abovementioned measures are likely to reflect conflict-modulated processes of attention and arousal rather than a hedonic or valence component.…”