Independent subsequent memory effects of conflict resolution and response inhibition

Learning and memory are an integral part of life, yet we often take them for granted. We remember what we have learned. However, the relationship between learning and memory may not be as simple as it seems. This is especially true when the learning is incidental as we go about fulfilling other behavioral goals and using various cognitive control functions. Cognitive control, which is required to produce goal-directed behavior, includes several component functions that may modulate incidental learning in various ways. Some cognitive control components (e.g., conflict resolution) appear to help, while others (e.g., response inhibition) appear to hurt memory encoding, resulting in opposite subsequent memory effects (SMEs). Better subsequent memory performance for target stimuli requiring control to resolve semantic conflicts between targets and distractors, and poorer subsequent memory for those requiring response withholding or cancellation. Here, we asked the question of how different components of cognitive control (i.e., response inhibition, conflict resolution) relate to one another in memory encoding. If their joint SEMs reflect the same mechanism whereby cognitive control determines how information is encoded, we would find a significant interaction in their joint SMEs. We report results from three experiments using a single task paradigm that requires both response inhibition and conflict resolution, and a surprise memory task to assess their joint SMEs. Across three experiments, we found that while conflict resolution enhances memory encoding, response inhibition impairs it. Importantly, their joint SMEs were robustly additive. This finding suggests that while response inhibition and conflict resolution commonly guide processing to select goal-directed actions, they seem to act on information encoding orthogonally with each other. This finding also highlights the diversity of cognitive control functions in terms of their mnemonic consequences.