Conflict-induced perceptual filtering: A mechanism supporting location-specific control?

Abstract

Cognitive control can adapt to the level of conflict present in the environment in a proactive (pre-stimulus onset) or reactive (post-stimulus onset) manner. This is evidenced by list-wide and location-specific proportion congruence effects, reduced interference in higher conflict lists or locations, respectively. Proactive control in the flanker task is believed to be supported by a conflict-induced-filtering (CIF) mechanism. The goal of the present set of experiments was to test if CIF also supports reactive location-specific control in the flanker task. To measure CIF, we interspersed a visual search task with a flanker task. After reproducing evidence for CIF using a two-location, list-wide proportion congruence manipulation (Experiment 1), we examined if a similar pattern emerges using a location-specific proportion congruence manipulation in Experiments 2 - 5. We found minimal evidence that reactive location-specific control employs a CIF mechanism. What was clear, however, is that the location-specific proportion congruence effect is susceptible to disruption from an intermixed task that dilutes the location-conflict signal. This highlights the need for alternative approaches to elucidate whether CIF or another mechanism supports reactive, location-specific control.