Tango of control: The interplay between proactive and reactive control

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Behavior

Background:

• The dual mechanism of control model proposes proactive and reactive control, but empirical evidence is inconclusive.
• Previous Stroop task manipulations to assess these mechanisms may confound results with associative learning.
• Existing solutions to confounds have limitations and practical challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To simultaneously manipulate proactive and reactive control to directly assess their separability.
• To investigate the independent and interactive contributions of proactive and reactive control to cognitive control.
• To refine methods for assessing cognitive control mechanisms using the Stroop task.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments utilized peripheral and perifoveal spatial Stroop tasks.
• Simultaneous manipulation of list-wide and item-specific proportion congruency (PC) at the trial level.
• Trial-level multilevel modeling was employed to analyze Stroop effects and control modulations.

Main Results:

• Compelling evidence supports a list-wide, PC-dependent proactive control mechanism.
• Proactive control influenced Stroop performance independently of reactive control and confounding factors.
• An item-specific PC-dependent reactive control effect emerged, but only in interaction with proactive control.

Conclusions:

• The findings provide strong support for the existence of distinct proactive and reactive control mechanisms.
• This study clarifies the independent operation of proactive control and its interaction with reactive control.
• The results enhance understanding of the complex interplay governing cognitive control.