Linking the Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Eriksen Flanker Task

Hand-tracking investigations of the Eriksen flanker task demonstrate that the congruency sequence effect observed in response times is the result of a combination of distinct effects observed in initiation times (ITs; time elapsed between stimulus onset and movement initiation) and movement times (MTs; time elapsed between movement initiation and response completion). This suggests that response times reflect the differential functioning of an early process involving global motoric inhibition, observed in ITs, and a later process involving competitive inhibition between response options, observed in MTs. In this study, we sought to link the behavioral and neural dynamics of cognitive control in the flanker task by combining electroencephalography (EEG) with a button release-and-press method that allows for response times to be separated into ITs and MTs. Crucially, this method enabled the examination of initiation-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) in addition to traditional stimulus-locked ERPs. We observed candidate neural correlates of the early global and later competitive inhibitory processes, in early parietal and later central activity respectively. Exploratory cluster-based permutation analyses further supported traditional ERP analyses, providing more precise estimates of the onset and offset of effects underlying the congruency sequence effect. This work indicates that the component processes underlying cognitive control which generate dissociable patterns of effects in ITs and MTs may also generate dissociable patterns of effects in neural measures. Critically, initiation-locked analyses revealed a clearer dissociation of the patterns of effects underlying specific ERP components and shed new light on findings from standard stimulus-locked analyses.