Task sets serve as boundaries for the congruency sequence effect.

Abstract

Cognitive control processes that enable purposeful behavior are often context-specific. A teenager, for example, may inhibit the tendency to daydream at work but not in the classroom. However, the nature of contextual boundaries for cognitive control processes remains unclear. Therefore, we revisited an ongoing controversy over whether such boundaries reflect (a) an attentional reset that occurs whenever a context-defining (e.g., sensory) feature changes or (b) a disruption of episodic memory retrieval that occurs only when the updated context-defining feature is linked to a different task set. To distinguish between these hypotheses, we used a cross-modal distractor-interference task to determine precisely when changing a salient context-defining feature-the sensory modality in which task stimuli appearbounds control processes underlying the congruency sequence effect (CSE). Consistent with the task set hypothesis, but not with the attentional reset hypothesis, Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that changing the sensory modality in which task stimuli appear eliminates the CSE only when the task structure enables participants to form modality-specific task sets. Experiment 3 further revealed that such "modalityspecific" CSEs are associated with orienting attention to the sensory modality in which task stimuli appear, which may facilitate the formation of a modality-specific task set. These findings support the view that task sets serve as boundaries for the CSE. Public Significance StatementCognitive control processes that enable purposeful behavior are often context-specific. For example, a child who recruits control to avoid getting into a fight in the classroom may not recruit such control on the playground. In the present study, we investigated the nature of such "contextual boundaries" for control. We found that these boundaries reflect switching between distinct task sets that form when control processes assign different context-defining features to different events or episodes, rather than switching between the features themselves. This finding informs an ongoing controversy regarding the boundaries of cognitive control.

Observing conflicting actions elicits conflict adaptation

“…Second, we provide further evidence that adaptive control is context-specific, and hence does not transfer across tasks, in line with most previous research on this topic (e.g., Dignath et al, 2019;Grant et al, 2020; for a review, see Braem et al, 2014).…”

ERP signatures of auditory awareness in cross-modal distractor-induced deafness

“…DID) is also expected if a visual cue is provided. This assumption is in line with previous results indicating CROSS-MODAL DISTRACTOR-INDUCED DEAFNESS that the formation of a modality-specific task set leads to an orientation of attention to the distractor's modality, if the target is expected to appear in this modality (Grant et al, 2020).…”

ERP signatures of auditory awareness in cross-modal distractor-induced deafness

“…DID) is also expected if a visual cue is provided. This assumption is in line with previous results indicating that the formation of a modality-specific task set leads to an orientation of attention to the distractor's modality, if the target is expected to appear in this modality (Grant, Cookson, & Weissman, 2020).…”