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Going, going, gone: characterizing the time-course of congruency sequence effects
Tobias Egner1, Sora Ely, Jack Grinband
1Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University Durham, NC, USA.
Frontiers in Psychology
|August 12, 2011
Summary
Congruency sequence effects (CSEs) in selective attention tasks diminish rapidly over time. This suggests attentional set enhancement is a short-lived reaction to conflict, not anticipation of future stimuli.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Attention Studies
Background:
- Trial history influences performance on selective attention tasks like the Stroop protocol.
- Congruency sequence effects (CSEs) often show reduced conflict after incongruent trials, suggesting memory and attention roles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal dynamics of attention-based contributions to CSEs.
- To differentiate between accounts predicting static or anticipatory attentional modulation.
Main Methods:
- Systematic variation of inter-stimulus and response-to-stimulus intervals in a face-word Stroop task.
- Characterization of CSE time-course while controlling for mnemonic influences.
Main Results:
- CSEs were strongest at the shortest intervals and decayed rapidly with increasing interval duration.
- CSEs were absent at longer intervals, despite increasing stimulus presentation likelihood.
- Data contradict theories of static or anticipatory attentional modulation.
Conclusions:
- Attentional contributions to CSEs are not static and do not reflect anticipatory biasing.
- Findings support a model of short-lived, phasic attentional set enhancement in response to processing conflict.
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