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Learning through instructions vs. learning through practice: flanker congruency effects from instructed and applied
Dorit Wenke1, Jan De Houwer2, Jeffrey De Winne2
1Department of Psychology, Humboldt University Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489, Berlin, Germany. dorit.wenke@hu-berlin.de.
Psychological Research
|October 30, 2015
Summary
Instructions alone can create stimulus-response (S-R) associations, causing automatic responses to flanker stimuli. Practicing these instructed rules strengthens associations, increasing response conflict and flanker congruency effects (FCE).
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Flanker congruency effects (FCE) demonstrate how irrelevant stimuli influence response selection.
- Understanding the automaticity of stimulus-response (S-R) mappings is crucial for explaining cognitive control.
- The role of explicit instructions versus practiced associations in automaticity remains an active research area.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether merely instructed stimulus-response (S-R) mappings elicit flanker congruency effects (FCE).
- To compare FCEs arising from instructed S-R mappings with those from practiced S-R mappings.
- To examine the impact of task practice on FCEs generated by instructed S-R mappings.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed a task involving flanker stimuli under different S-R mapping conditions.
- Four new S-R mappings were instructed before each block.
- Conditions included 'applied' mappings (stimuli as targets and flankers) and 'merely instructed' mappings (stimuli exclusively as targets or flankers).
Main Results:
- Significant FCEs were observed for both instructed and applied S-R mappings.
- The FCE for instructed mappings was smaller than for applied mappings.
- FCEs from instructed mappings decreased with task practice, while applied mappings showed increased conflict.
Conclusions:
- Explicit instructions can induce S-R associations that lead to automatic response activation.
- Task practice strengthens instructed S-R associations, enhancing automaticity and response conflict.
- These findings highlight the interplay between explicit instruction and implicit learning in cognitive control.
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