Repetition expectancy vs. conflict adaptation: which better explains the congruency sequence effect?
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1
University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Australia
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2
University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Australia
Aims: Response conflict tasks often involve task-irrelevant stimulus features which are either congruent or incongruent with the relevant target stimulus feature, resulting in interference (increased RT and error rate, larger N2 and P3 amplitude) on incongruent trials. However, this effect is larger if the previous stimulus was a congruent trial: this defines the congruency sequence effect (CSE). In the current study, we examine two competing theories explaining the CSE (namely, that participants expect repetitions, or that they adapt to conflict trial-by-trial) by comparing the effects of longer trial sequences.
Method: 35 participants completed an Eriksen flanker task while EEG was recorded. Post-experimentally, trials were sorted according to the identity of not only the current trial, but also the preceding three trials.
Results: When trials were sorted according to the sequence of repetitions and alternations, no strong evidence of subjective expectancies was observed. However, when trials were sorted according to the number and recency of congruent trials in the preceding sequence, there were strong effects suggesting conflict adaptation, with error rate, RT, and N2 and P3 amplitude to incongruent trials all showing linear reductions with increasing numbers of incongruent trials in the preceding sequence.
Conclusions: The results highlight the utility of considering longer sequences of trials than are traditionally examined.
Acknowledgements
Dr JL Smith was supported in this work by a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and an Australian Rotary Health Royce Abbey Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Keywords:
congruency sequence effect,
conflict adaptation,
expectancy,
Eriksen Flanker task,
Gratton effect
Conference:
Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Inc, Coffs Harbour, Australia, 26 Nov - 28 Nov, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Psychophysiology
Citation:
Smith
JL and
Sufani
C
(2014). Repetition expectancy vs. conflict adaptation: which better explains the congruency sequence effect?.
Conference Abstract:
Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Inc.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2014.216.00011
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Received:
22 Oct 2014;
Published Online:
02 Dec 2014.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Janette L Smith, University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Sydney, Australia, janette.smith@unsw.edu.au