Conflict adaptation in a confound-minimized face-word Stroop task: exploring the potential settings of an...

Conflict adaptation refers to the adjustment of cognitive control to reduce interference on subsequent trials. Its neural mechanisms are often studied by assessing the congruence sequence effect (CSE) in face-word Stroop tasks during neuroimaging. The present behavioral study aimed to address two key methodological issues when aiming to translate standard response conflict tasks into fMRI settings: Ensuring the involvement of cognitive control in the CSE and demonstrating its temporal stability across varying inter-trial intervals. In a set of five experiments, using an adapted version of the face-word Stroop task, participants performed either a gender categorization (Experiment 3) or responded to the learned identity of four faces while ignoring the printed name (all other experiments). We specifically incorporated recent advancements in confound minimization to exclude effects of feature integration and contingency learning, included a priming component to further increase the involvement of cognitive control, and used a variable range of inter-trial intervals to test for potential applicability in fMRI research. Although a robust Stroop effect was consistently observed in all experiments, a strong CSE emerged specifically in the gender categorization task. In the confound-minimized face-word Stroop variant, a significant CSE occurred only under specific conditions (e.g., sufficiently long target presentation, bi-manual responses) and was accompanied by substantial inter-individual variability. Therefore, while we observed a reliable CSE in a confound-minimized face-word Stroop task with long inter-trial intervals, the increased methodological rigor that improves precision and interpretability also adds complexity and yields smaller and more variable effects. This trade-off constitutes an important consideration when aiming to adapt the Stroop task for fMRI applicability.