RTs across Dual Stimuli, Gender, GPA and Trialtype

This psychophysics experiment of Eriksen Flanker Task experiment is built in four independent variables (stimuli, gender, GPA, and trial type) with one dependent variable (RTs). CAF was also examined between stimuli arrow and letter. The data was analyzed using four-way ANOVA. The result revealed that 1) Arrow stimuli needed few RTs than letter stimuli (F value = 17.964, and p-value = 2.34e-05). 2) In gender, there was a significantly different effect of RTs between female and male groups(F value = 91.203, p-value = 2e-16 (p < 0.001). 3) In trial type, incongruent trial required more RTs than congruent trial (F value = 144.569, p-value = <2e-16 (p < 0.001). 4) Arrow stimuli was more accurate than letter with t-value = 6.4099, df = 2220.5, p-value = 1.773e-10. The result found the differences between the stimuli were caused by horizontal and vertical attention, so were in trial-type with parallel and focus phase. Across gender,the male group has proven to be faster in both stimuli than the female counterpart. This RTs pattern suggest that in conflict flanker task research, people tend to show the same architecture processing. Therefore the finding is quite universal in several research.

Performance on Auditory and Visual Tasks of Inhibition in English Monolingual and Spanish–English Bilingual Adults: Do Bilinguals Have a Cognitive Advantage?

Purpose Bilingual individuals have been shown to be more proficient on visual tasks of inhibition compared with their monolingual counterparts. However, the bilingual advantage has not been evidenced in all studies, and very little is known regarding how bilingualism influences inhibitory control in the perception of auditory information. The purpose of the current study was to examine inhibition of irrelevant information using auditory and visual tasks in English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual adults. Method Twenty English monolinguals and 19 early balanced Spanish–English bilinguals participated in this study. All participants were 18–30 years of age, had hearing thresholds < 25 dB HL from 250 to 8000 Hz, bilaterally (American National Standards Institute, 2003), and were right handed. Inhibition was measured using a forced-attention dichotic consonant–vowel listening task and the Simon task, a nonverbal visual test. Results Both groups of participants demonstrated a significant right ear advantage on the dichotic listening task; however, no significant differences in performance were evidenced between the monolingual and bilingual groups in any of the dichotic listening conditions. Both groups performed better on the congruent trial than on the incongruent trial of the Simon task and had significantly faster response times on the congruent trial than on the incongruent trial. However, there were no significant differences in performance between the monolingual and bilingual groups on the visual test of inhibition. Conclusions No significant differences in performance on auditory and visual tests of inhibition of irrelevant information were evidenced between the monolingual and bilingual participants in this study. These findings suggest that bilinguals may not exhibit an advantage in the inhibition of irrelevant information compared with monolinguals.

Local Control Mechanisms of Implicit and Explicit Conflicts

Congruency sequence effects are observed when the congruency effects following incongruent trials are smaller than those following congruent trials. It is typically assumed that such flexible adjustments are evidence of cognitively controlled dynamic modulations. The present study investigated whether cognitive control acts locally or globally when implicit and explicit conflicts exist simultaneously within a system. The implicit SNARC task and explicit Simon task were combined in a single task. The results showed that congruency effects of one type (e.g., SNARC effect) were only smaller following an incongruent trial of the same type (e.g., SNARC effect), but not when following an incongruent trial of the other type (e.g., Simon effect). These results indicate the operation of local control mechanisms triggered by implicit and explicit conflicts.

Attentional Control in Anterior Cingulate Cortex Based on Probabilistic Cueing

In Stroop-like tasks, conflict effects in behavioral measures and ACC activity are smaller on trials following an incongruent trial than following a congruent one. Researchers have found no agreement on whether these sequential effects in ACC can be driven by experienced incongruency only or also by expectations about target types. In the present fMRI experiment, we specifically manipulated the expectancies by using symbolic cues predicting with 75% or 50% certainty the incongruent or congruent targets in a Stroop-like task. Both behavioral and dorsal ACC data replicated previous sequential effects, with conflict effects being smallest for targets following the cues that predicted with 75% certainty the incongruent targets. However, these effects were not driven by experienced conflict but by symbolic cues. These results demonstrate differential attentional control activity in ACC after probabilistic cueing, providing evidence for control adjustments driven by changes in expectation.