Cargando…

Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks

Response control or inhibition is one of the cornerstones of modern cognitive psychology, featuring prominently in theories of executive functioning and impulsive behavior. However, repeated failures to observe correlations between commonly applied tasks have led some theorists to question whether c...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hedge, Craig, Powell, Georgina, Bompas, Aline, Sumner, Petroc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Psychological Association 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9899369/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34591554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001028
_version_ 1784882622906761216
author Hedge, Craig
Powell, Georgina
Bompas, Aline
Sumner, Petroc
author_facet Hedge, Craig
Powell, Georgina
Bompas, Aline
Sumner, Petroc
author_sort Hedge, Craig
collection PubMed
description Response control or inhibition is one of the cornerstones of modern cognitive psychology, featuring prominently in theories of executive functioning and impulsive behavior. However, repeated failures to observe correlations between commonly applied tasks have led some theorists to question whether common response conflict processes even exist. A challenge to answering this question is that behavior is multifaceted, with both conflict and nonconflict processes (e.g., strategy, processing speed) contributing to individual differences. Here, we use a cognitive model to dissociate these processes; the diffusion model for conflict tasks (Ulrich et al., 2015). In a meta-analysis of fits to seven empirical datasets containing combinations of the flanker, Simon, color-word Stroop, and spatial Stroop tasks, we observed weak (r < .05) zero-order correlations between tasks in parameters reflecting conflict processing, seemingly challenging a general control construct. However, our meta-analysis showed consistent positive correlations in parameters representing processing speed and strategy. We then use model simulations to evaluate whether correlations in behavioral costs are diagnostic of the presence or absence of common mechanisms of conflict processing. We use the model to impose known correlations for conflict mechanisms across tasks, and we compare the simulated behavior to simulations when there is no conflict correlation across tasks. We find that correlations in strategy and processing speed can produce behavioral correlations equal to, or larger than, those produced by correlated conflict mechanisms. We conclude that correlations between conflict tasks are only weakly informative about common conflict mechanisms if researchers do not control for strategy and processing speed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9899369
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher American Psychological Association
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-98993692023-02-07 Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks Hedge, Craig Powell, Georgina Bompas, Aline Sumner, Petroc J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn Research Articles Response control or inhibition is one of the cornerstones of modern cognitive psychology, featuring prominently in theories of executive functioning and impulsive behavior. However, repeated failures to observe correlations between commonly applied tasks have led some theorists to question whether common response conflict processes even exist. A challenge to answering this question is that behavior is multifaceted, with both conflict and nonconflict processes (e.g., strategy, processing speed) contributing to individual differences. Here, we use a cognitive model to dissociate these processes; the diffusion model for conflict tasks (Ulrich et al., 2015). In a meta-analysis of fits to seven empirical datasets containing combinations of the flanker, Simon, color-word Stroop, and spatial Stroop tasks, we observed weak (r < .05) zero-order correlations between tasks in parameters reflecting conflict processing, seemingly challenging a general control construct. However, our meta-analysis showed consistent positive correlations in parameters representing processing speed and strategy. We then use model simulations to evaluate whether correlations in behavioral costs are diagnostic of the presence or absence of common mechanisms of conflict processing. We use the model to impose known correlations for conflict mechanisms across tasks, and we compare the simulated behavior to simulations when there is no conflict correlation across tasks. We find that correlations in strategy and processing speed can produce behavioral correlations equal to, or larger than, those produced by correlated conflict mechanisms. We conclude that correlations between conflict tasks are only weakly informative about common conflict mechanisms if researchers do not control for strategy and processing speed. American Psychological Association 2021-09-30 2022-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9899369/ /pubmed/34591554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001028 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s). Author(s) grant(s) the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Hedge, Craig
Powell, Georgina
Bompas, Aline
Sumner, Petroc
Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title_full Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title_fullStr Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title_full_unstemmed Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title_short Strategy and Processing Speed Eclipse Individual Differences in Control Ability in Conflict Tasks
title_sort strategy and processing speed eclipse individual differences in control ability in conflict tasks
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9899369/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34591554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001028
work_keys_str_mv AT hedgecraig strategyandprocessingspeedeclipseindividualdifferencesincontrolabilityinconflicttasks
AT powellgeorgina strategyandprocessingspeedeclipseindividualdifferencesincontrolabilityinconflicttasks
AT bompasaline strategyandprocessingspeedeclipseindividualdifferencesincontrolabilityinconflicttasks
AT sumnerpetroc strategyandprocessingspeedeclipseindividualdifferencesincontrolabilityinconflicttasks