Context-specific Proportion Congruent Effect Research Articles

What is cued by faces in the face-based context-specific proportion congruent manipulation?

In a typical context-specific proportion congruent manipulation, participants are presented with Stroop stimuli in one of two contexts. In one context, stimuli are mostly incongruent. In the other context, stimuli are mostly congruent. Despite task-wide instructions to ignore the word and to name the color in which the word appears, the size of the congruency effect varies as a function of context. Specifically, the size of the congruency effect is reduced for the mostly incongruent relative to the mostly congruent context. The purpose of the current series of experiments is to explore the mechanisms underlying this context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect when faces are used as the context. Existing manipulations have reported a face-based CSPC effect, however the results of these studies are confounded with contingency learning biases leaving an open question as to what processes faces serve to cue. In the four experiments reported here both inducer (contingency-biased) and diagnostic (contingency-unbiased) stimuli were included in a face-based context level manipulation. Across four experiments, a face-based CSPC effect is observed for inducer but not diagnostic stimuli, suggesting that this effect is driven by participants learning context + stimulus associations.

Affective Influence on Context-Specific Proportion Congruent (CSPC) Effect.

Congruency effects diminish in contexts associated with mostly incongruent trials compared with contexts associated with mostly congruent trials. Here, we aimed to assess affective influences on this context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect. We presented either neutral or affective faces as context stimuli in a Flanker task and associated mostly incongruent trials with male/female faces for a neutral-context group and with angry/happy faces for a affective-context group. To assess general influences of affective valence, we compared CSPC effects between the neutral-context group and the affective-context group. To assess valence-specific influences, we compared the size of CSPC effects - for the affective-context group only - between participants for whom mostly incongruent trials were associated with angry faces and participants for whom mostly incongruent trials were associated with happy faces. However, the modulating influence on the CSPC effect from affective versus neutral contexts or from valence-proportion mappings was not statistically significant.

Context-specific proportion congruent effects: Compound-cue contingency learning in disguise.

Conflict between task-relevant and task-irrelevant stimulus information leads to impairment in response speed and accuracy. For instance, in the colour-word Stroop paradigm, participants respond slower and less accurately to the print colour of incongruent colour words (e.g., "red" printed in green) than to congruent colour words (e.g., "green" in green). Importantly, this congruency effect is diminished when the trials in an experiment are mostly incongruent, relative to mostly congruent, termed a proportion congruent effect. When distracting stimuli are mostly congruent in one context (e.g., location or font) but mostly incongruent in another context (e.g., another location or font), the congruency effect is still diminished in the mostly incongruent context, termed a context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect. Both the standard proportion congruent and CSPC effects are typically interpreted in terms of conflict-driven attentional control, frequently termed conflict adaptation or conflict monitoring. However, in two experiments, we investigated contingency learning confounds in context-specific proportion congruent effects. In particular, two variants of a dissociation procedure are presented with the font variant of the CSPC procedure. In both, robust contingency learning effects were observed. No evidence for context-specific control was observed. In fact, results trended in the wrong direction. In all, the results suggest that CSPC effects may not be a useful way of studying attentional control.

Reproducing the location-based context-specific proportion congruent effect for frequency unbiased items: A reply to Hutcheon and Spieler (2016).

Stroop effects can be modulated by context-specific cues associated with different levels of proportion congruent, even for items that appear equally frequently in each context. This result has important theoretical implications, because it rules out frequency-driven learning explanations of context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effects and leaves open the possibility that a cue-driven retrieval process can reinstate attentional control settings in a rapid online fashion. The purpose of the present work was to address reproducibility concerns that have been raised about this finding. We conducted several reproductions and novel extensions using Amazon's mechanical Turk in both Stroop and flanker tasks. We successfully replicated the central finding that CSPC effects can be observed for frequency-unbiased items. We also provide new Monte Carlo simulation analyses to estimate reproducibility of the phenomena that show important limitations on these designs for measuring contextual control.

Properties of context-driven control revealed through the analysis of sequential congruency effects

The context specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect refers to the reduction in the size of the congruency effect at locations with a high proportion of incongruent trials compared to locations with a high proportion of congruent trials. The CSPC effect is commonly taken as evidence for context-driven modulation of cognitive control. Current models of context-driven control suggest that variations in the efficiency of control across locations are due to variations in the occurrence of conflict across locations (context). Moreover, these models predict that control settings are updated on a trial-to-trial basis. In Experiment 1, we investigated this prediction. If variations in conflict drive variations in the efficiency of control, and these location-based control settings are updated on each trial, then the occurrence of conflict at one location should lead to more efficient processing when the location repeats, but not when the location switches. Consistent with this prediction, we observed a sequential congruency effect when the location repeats, but not when the location switches. In Experiment 2, we looked for evidence of sequential congruency effects within and between locations in a manipulation in which an equal proportion of congruent and incongruent trials appear at each location. In contrast to the results of Experiment 1, we observed sequential congruency effects both when location repeated and when location switched. Thus, location appears to be a salient dimension on which to implement control settings when it is used in conjunction with variations in the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials.

Context-Specific Proportion Congruency Effects: An Episodic Learning Account and Computational Model.

In the Stroop task, participants identify the print color of color words. The congruency effect is the observation that response times and errors are increased when the word and color are incongruent (e.g., the word “red” in green ink) relative to when they are congruent (e.g., “red” in red). The proportion congruent (PC) effect is the finding that congruency effects are reduced when trials are mostly incongruent rather than mostly congruent. This PC effect can be context-specific. For instance, if trials are mostly incongruent when presented in one location and mostly congruent when presented in another location, the congruency effect is smaller for the former location. Typically, PC effects are interpreted in terms of strategic control of attention in response to conflict, termed conflict adaptation or conflict monitoring. In the present manuscript, however, an episodic learning account is presented for context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effects. In particular, it is argued that context-specific contingency learning can explain part of the effect, and context-specific rhythmic responding can explain the rest. Both contingency-based and temporal-based learning can parsimoniously be conceptualized within an episodic learning framework. An adaptation of the Parallel Episodic Processing model is presented. This model successfully simulates CSPC effects, both for contingency-biased and contingency-unbiased (transfer) items. The same fixed-parameter model can explain a range of other findings from the learning, timing, binding, practice, and attentional control domains.

Context-specific temporal learning with non-conflict stimuli: proof-of-principle for a learning account of context-specific proportion congruent effects.

The conflict adaptation account proposes that participants adjust attention to target and distracting stimuli in response to conflict. This is argued to explain the proportion congruent effect, wherein the congruency effect decreases as the proportion of conflicting incongruent trials increases. Some reports further argue that this conflict adaptation process can be context-specific. This paper presents a proof-of-principle for a competing account. It is suggested that such context-specific effects might be driven by very basic temporal learning processes. In the reported experiment, we manipulated stimulus contrast in place of congruency. In one location, stimulus letters were mostly easy to identify (high stimulus contrast). In the other location, letters were mostly hard to identify (low stimulus contrast). Participants produced a larger contrast effect in the mostly easy context. Along with supplemental analyses investigating the role of context switching and previous trial response times, the results are consistent with the notion that different rhythms of responding are learned for an easy versus hard location context. These results suggest that context-specific proportion congruency effects might result, in whole or in part, from temporal learning. Conflict adaptation may or may not play an additional role.

The Effectiveness of Cue Relevance and Saliency in the Context-Specific Proportion Congruent Effect

The Effectiveness of Cue Relevance and Saliency in the Context-Specific Proportion Congruent Effect

Social categories as a context for the allocation of attentional control.

Recent studies of cognitive control have highlighted the idea that context can rapidly cue the control of attention. The present study shows that faces can be quickly categorized on the basis of gender, and these gender categories can be used as a contextual cue to allocate attentional control. Furthermore, the results reported here reveal processes implicated in the development and operation of implicit social stereotypes. Three of 4 faces from 1 gender group were associated with a high proportion of congruent trials in a flanker task, while 3 of 4 faces of the other gender group were associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. A single inconsistent face within each gender group was associated with the proportion congruency of the opposite gender group. A social context-specific proportion congruent effect (PCE) was observed (i.e., larger interference for the gender category associated with a high proportion of congruent trials), even for inconsistent members of the category. This effect is consistent with the view that a new implicit stereotype was created, linking gender with a specific proportion of congruency. In Experiment 2, the task goals modulated the use of the new created stereotype. Instructions to categorize versus individuate the target faces, respectively, led participants to allocate attention either toward the category-diagnostic or the identity-diagnostic facial features. Furthermore, and in line with stereotyping research, under instructions to categorize faces this social-context-specific PCE generalized to new faces of the same gender group with whom participants did not have previous experience. These results link attention with social categorization processes.

Model-Based Analysis of Context-Specific Cognitive Control

Interference resolution is improved for stimuli presented in contexts (e.g., locations) associated with frequent conflict. This phenomenon, the context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect, has challenged the traditional juxtaposition of “automatic” and “controlled” processing because it suggests that contextual cues can prime top-down control settings in a bottom-up manner. We recently obtained support for this “priming of control” hypothesis with functional magnetic resonance imaging by showing that CSPC effects are mediated by contextually cued adjustments in processing selectivity. However, an equally plausible explanation is that CSPC effects reflect adjustments in response caution triggered by expectancy violations (i.e., prediction errors) when encountering rare events as compared to common ones (e.g., incongruent trials in a task context associated with infrequent conflict). Here, we applied a quantitative model of choice, the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA), to distil the reaction time and accuracy data from four independent samples that performed a modified flanker task into latent variables representing the psychological processes underlying task-related decision making. We contrasted models which differentially accounted for CSPC effects as arising either from contextually cued shifts in the rate of sensory evidence accumulation (“drift” models) or in the amount of evidence required to reach a decision (“threshold” models). For the majority of the participants, the LBA ascribed CSPC effects to increases in response threshold for contextually infrequent trial types (e.g., congruent trials in the frequent conflict context), suggesting that the phenomenon may reflect more a prediction error-triggered shift in decision criterion rather than enhanced sensory evidence accumulation under conditions of frequent conflict.

The context-specific proportion congruent Stroop effect: Location as a contextual cue

The Stroop effect has been shown to depend on the relative proportion of congruent and incongruent trials. This effect is commonly attributed to experiment-wide word-reading strategies that change as a function of proportion congruent. Recently, Jacoby, Lindsay, and Hessels (2003) reported an item-specific proportion congruent effect that cannot be due to these strategies and instead may reflect rapid, stimulus driven control over word-reading processes. However, an item-specific proportion congruent effect may also reflect learned associations between color word identities and responses. In two experiments, we demonstrate a context-specific proportion congruent effect that cannot be explained by such word-response associations. Our results suggest that processes other than learning of word-response associations can produce contextual control over Stroop interference.