Urgency forces stimulus-driven action by overcoming cognitive control

Intelligent behavior requires to act directed by goals despite competing action tendencies triggered by stimuli in the environment. For eye movements, it has recently been discovered that this ability is briefly reduced in urgent situations (Salinas et al., 2019). In a time-window before an urgent response, participants could not help but look at a suddenly appearing visual stimulus, even though their goal was to look away from it. Urgency seemed to provoke a new visual–oculomotor phenomenon: A period in which saccadic eye movements are dominated by external stimuli, and uncontrollable by current goals. This period was assumed to arise from brain mechanisms controlling eye movements and spatial attention, such as those of the frontal eye field. Here, we show that the phenomenon is more general than previously thought. We found that also in well-investigated manual tasks, urgency made goal-conflicting stimulus features dominate behavioral responses. This dominance of behavior followed established trial-to-trial signatures of cognitive control mechanisms that replicate across a variety of tasks. Thus together, these findings reveal that urgency temporarily forces stimulus-driven action by overcoming cognitive control in general, not only at brain mechanisms controlling eye movements.

Urgency disrupts cognitive control of human action

Intelligent behavior requires cognitive control, the ability to act directed by goals despite competing action tendencies triggered by stimuli in the environment. For eye movements, it has recently been discovered that cognitive control is briefly disrupted in urgent situations (Salinas et al., 2019). In a time-window before an urgent response, participants could not help but look at a suddenly appearing visual stimulus, even though their goal was to look away from it. Urgency seemed to provoke a new visual-oculomotor phenomenon: A period in which saccadic eye movements are dominated by external stimuli, and uncontrollable by current goals. This period was assumed to arise from brain mechanisms controlling eye movements and spatial attention, such as those of the frontal eye field. Here, we show that the phenomenon is more general than previously thought. We found that urgency disrupted cognitive control also in well-investigated manual tasks, so that responses were dominated by goal-conflicting stimulus features. This dominance of behavior followed established trial-to-trial signatures of cognitive control that replicate across a variety of tasks. Thus together, these findings reveal that urgency temporarily impairs cognitive control in general, not only at brain mechanisms controlling eye movements.

Preserved sensory processing but hampered conflict detection when stimulus input is task-irrelevant

Conflict detection in sensory input is central to adaptive human behavior. Perhaps unsurprisingly, past research has shown that conflict may even be detected in absence of conflict awareness, suggesting that conflict detection is an automatic process that does not require attention. To test the possibility of conflict processing in the absence of attention, we manipulated task relevance and response overlap of potentially conflicting stimulus features across six behavioral tasks. Multivariate analyses on human electroencephalographic data revealed neural signatures of conflict only when at least one feature of a conflicting stimulus was attended, regardless of whether that feature was part of the conflict, or overlaps with the response. In contrast, neural signatures of basic sensory processes were present even when a stimulus was completely unattended. These data reveal an attentional bottleneck at the level of objects, suggesting that object-based attention is a prerequisite for cognitive control operations involved in conflict detection.

Intact sensory processing but hampered conflict detection when stimulus input is task-irrelevant

Conflict detection in sensory input is central to adaptive human behavior. Perhaps unsurprisingly, past research has shown that conflict may be detected even in the absence of conflict awareness, suggesting that conflict detection is a fully automatic process that does not require attention. Across six behavioral tasks, we manipulated task relevance and response overlap of potentially conflicting stimulus features to test the possibility of conflict processing in the absence of attention. Multivariate analyses on human electroencephalographic data revealed that neural signatures of conflict are only present when at least one feature of a conflicting stimulus is attended, regardless of whether that feature is part of the conflict. In contrast, neural signatures of basic sensory processes are present even when a stimulus is completely unattended. These data reveal an attentional bottleneck at the level of objects, suggesting that object-based attention is a prerequisite for cognitive control operations involved in conflict detection.

Uncertainty Tolerance & Cognitive Control

Cognitive control refers to the ability to make correct decisions concurrent to distracting information, and to adapt to conflicting stimulus configurations, eventually promoting goal-directed behavior. Previous research has linked individual differences in cognitive control to psychopathological conditions such as anxiety. However, a link with uncertainty tolerance (UT) has not been tested so far, although both constructs describe cognitive and behavioral performance in ambiguous situations, thus they share some similarities. We probed cognitive control in web-based experimentation (jsPsych) with a simple flanker task (N = 111) and a version without confounds in episodic memory (N = 116). Both experiments revealed two well-established behavioral indices: congruency effects (CEs) and congruency-sequence effects (CSEs). Only small-to-zero correlations emerged between CEs, UT, and need for cognitive closure (NCC), a personality trait inversely related to UT. A subtle correlation (r = .18) was noted in Experiment 2 between NCC and CSE. Throughout, Bayesian analyses provided anecdotal-to-moderate evidence for the null-hypotheses.

Tracking dynamic adjustments to decision making and performance monitoring processes in conflict tasks

How we exert control over our decision making has been investigated using conflict tasks, which involve stimuli containing elements that are either congruent or incongruent. In these tasks, participants adapt their decision making strategies following exposure to incongruent stimuli. According to conflict monitoring accounts, conflicting stimulus features are detected in medial frontal cortex, and the extent of experienced conflict scales with response time (RT) and frontal theta-band activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG). However, the consequent adjustments to decision processes following response conflict are not well-specified. To characterise these adjustments and their neural implementation we recorded EEG during a Flanker task. We traced the time-courses of performance monitoring processes (frontal theta) and multiple processes related to perceptual decision making. In each trial participants judged which of two overlaid gratings forming a plaid stimulus (termed the S1 target) was of higher contrast. The stimulus was divided into two sections, which each contained higher contrast gratings in either congruent or incongruent directions. Shortly after responding to the S1 target, an additional S2 target was presented, which was always congruent. Our EEG results suggest enhanced sensory evidence representations in visual cortex and reduced evidence accumulation rates for S2 targets following incongruent S1 stimuli. Frontal theta amplitudes positively correlated with RT following S1 targets (in line with conflict monitoring accounts). Following S2 targets there was no such correlation, and theta amplitude profiles instead resembled decision evidence accumulation trajectories. Based on these differing amplitude profiles across S1 and S2 we formulated a novel theory of frontal theta and performance monitoring, which accounts for differing theta amplitude profiles previously observed across tasks that do and do not involve conflict. We propose that frontal theta does not actually index conflict detection but instead reflects a more general performance monitoring process related to decision confidence and rapid error detection.

Individual Differences in Uncertainty Tolerance Are not Associated With Cognitive Control Functions in the Flanker Task

Cognitive control refers to the ability to make correct decisions concurrent to distracting information, and to adapt to conflicting stimulus configurations, eventually promoting goal-directed behavior. Previous research has linked individual differences in cognitive control to psychopathological conditions such as anxiety. However, a link with uncertainty tolerance (UT) has not been tested so far, although both constructs describe cognitive and behavioral performance in ambiguous situations, thus they share some similarities. We probed cognitive control in web-based experimentation (jsPsych) with a simple flanker task (N = 111) and a version without confounds in episodic memory (N = 116). Both experiments revealed two well-established behavioral indices: congruency effects (CEs) and congruency-sequence effects (CSEs). Only small-to-zero correlations emerged between CEs, UT, and need for cognitive closure (NCC), a personality trait inversely related to UT. A subtle correlation (r = .18) was noted in Experiment 2 between NCC and CSE. Throughout, Bayesian analyses provided anecdotal-to-moderate evidence for the null-hypotheses.