| Title |
(No) time for control: Frontal theta dynamics reveal the cost of temporally guided conflict anticipation
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, June 2015
|
| DOI | 10.3758/s13415-015-0367-2 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Joram van Driel, Jennifer C. Swart, Tobias Egner, K. Richard Ridderinkhof, Michael X Cohen |
| Abstract |
During situations of response conflict, cognitive control is characterized by prefrontal theta-band (3- to 8-Hz) activity. It has been shown that cognitive control can be triggered proactively by contextual cues that predict conflict. Here, we investigated whether a pretrial preparation interval could serve as such a cue. This would show that the temporal contingencies embedded in the task can be used to anticipate upcoming conflict. To this end, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from 30 human subjects while they performed a version of a Simon task in which the duration of a fixation cross between trials predicted whether the next trial would contain response conflict. Both their behavior and EEG activity showed a consistent but unexpected pattern of results: The conflict effect (increased reaction times and decreased accuracy on conflict as compared to nonconflict trials) was stronger when conflict was cued, and this was associated with stronger conflict-related midfrontal theta activity and functional connectivity. Interestingly, intervals that predicted conflict did show a pretarget increase in midfrontal theta power. These findings suggest that temporally guided expectations of conflict do heighten conflict anticipation, but also lead to less efficiently applied reactive control. We further explored this post-hoc interpretation by means of three behavioral follow-up experiments, in which we used nontemporal cues, semantically informative cues, and neutral cues. Together, this body of results suggests that the counterintuitive cost of conflict cueing may not be uniquely related to the temporal domain, but may instead be related to the implicitness and validity of the cue. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 1 | 33% |
| Spain | 1 | 33% |
| United States | 1 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists | 2 | 67% |
| Members of the public | 1 | 33% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 160 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 2 | 1% |
| Portugal | 1 | <1% |
| Italy | 1 | <1% |
| Spain | 1 | <1% |
| United States | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 154 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | 38 | 24% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 34 | 21% |
| Student > Master | 23 | 14% |
| Student > Bachelor | 11 | 7% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 10 | 6% |
| Other | 24 | 15% |
| Unknown | 20 | 13% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 61 | 38% |
| Neuroscience | 33 | 21% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 11 | 7% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 5 | 3% |
| Computer Science | 2 | 1% |
| Other | 7 | 4% |
| Unknown | 41 | 26% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 September 2016.
All research outputs
#7,266,223
of 24,003,070 outputs
Outputs from Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
#315
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Outputs of similar age
#80,561
of 266,972 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
#5
of 11 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,003,070 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 974 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 11 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its contemporaries.