Event Abstract Back to Event Repetition expectancy vs. conflict adaptation: which better explains the congruency sequence effect? Janette L. Smith1* and Christopher Sufani2 1 University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Australia 2 University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Australia Aims: Response conflict tasks often involve task-irrelevant stimulus features which are either congruent or incongruent with the relevant target stimulus feature, resulting in interference (increased RT and error rate, larger N2 and P3 amplitude) on incongruent trials. However, this effect is larger if the previous stimulus was a congruent trial: this defines the congruency sequence effect (CSE). In the current study, we examine two competing theories explaining the CSE (namely, that participants expect repetitions, or that they adapt to conflict trial-by-trial) by comparing the effects of longer trial sequences. Method: 35 participants completed an Eriksen flanker task while EEG was recorded. Post-experimentally, trials were sorted according to the identity of not only the current trial, but also the preceding three trials. Results: When trials were sorted according to the sequence of repetitions and alternations, no strong evidence of subjective expectancies was observed. However, when trials were sorted according to the number and recency of congruent trials in the preceding sequence, there were strong effects suggesting conflict adaptation, with error rate, RT, and N2 and P3 amplitude to incongruent trials all showing linear reductions with increasing numbers of incongruent trials in the preceding sequence. Conclusions: The results highlight the utility of considering longer sequences of trials than are traditionally examined. Acknowledgements Dr JL Smith was supported in this work by a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and an Australian Rotary Health Royce Abbey Postdoctoral Fellowship. Keywords: congruency sequence effect, conflict adaptation, expectancy, Eriksen Flanker task, Gratton effect Conference: Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Inc, Coffs Harbour, Australia, 26 Nov - 28 Nov, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Psychophysiology Citation: Smith JL and Sufani C (2014). Repetition expectancy vs. conflict adaptation: which better explains the congruency sequence effect?. Conference Abstract: Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Inc. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2014.216.00011 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Oct 2014; Published Online: 02 Dec 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. Janette L Smith, University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Sydney, Australia, janette.smith@unsw.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Janette L Smith Christopher Sufani Google Janette L Smith Christopher Sufani Google Scholar Janette L Smith Christopher Sufani PubMed Janette L Smith Christopher Sufani Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.