title: Conflict-triggered top-down control: default mode, last resort, or no such thing?
abstract: The conflict monitoring account posits that globally high levels of conflict trigger engagement of top-down control; however, recent findings point to the mercurial nature of top-down control in high conflict contexts. The current study examined the potential moderating effect of associative learning on conflict-triggered top-down control engagement by testing the Associations as Antagonists to Top-Down Control (AATC) hypothesis. In 4 experiments, list-wide proportion congruence was manipulated, and conflict-triggered top-down control engagement was examined by comparing interference for frequency-matched, 50% congruent items across mostly congruent (low conflict) and mostly incongruent (high conflict) lists. Despite the fact that global levels of conflict were varied identically across experiments, evidence of conflict-triggered top-down control engagement was selective to those experiments in which responses could not be predicted on the majority of trials via simple associative learning, consistent with the AATC hypothesis. In a 5th experiment, older adults showed no evidence of top-down control engagement under conditions in which young adults did, a finding that refined the interpretation of the patterns observed in the prior experiments. Collectively, these findings suggest that top-down control engagement in high conflict contexts is neither the default mode nor an unused (or nonexistent) strategy. Top-down control is best characterized as a last resort that is engaged when reliance on one's environment, and in particular associative responding, is unproductive for achieving task goals.
authors.affiliation: Washington University in St. Louis.
authors.forename: Julie M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bugg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012718:Set, Psychology; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult