Abstract
The Congruency Sequence Effect (CSE) denotes the common finding that distractor–target Congruency Effects are reduced after incongruent compared to after congruent trials. Although the CSE is widely attributed to attentional adjustment (i.e., increasing or decreasing the bias in attentional weights regarding processing the target or distractor), unequivocal evidence for this assumption is missing. To investigate the CSE and attentional adjustment we used a temporal flanker task and intermixed a “temporal search task”, in which a target stimulus occurred randomly at one of two temporal positions, corresponding to the temporal positions of the target and the distractor occurrence in the temporal flanker task. We observed a CSE that could not be explained in terms of feature sequences, distractor-related contingencies, or a strategy of reversed distractor–response priming after incongruent trials. Furthermore, following a temporal search task trial, the Congruency Effect was larger when the search target occurred on the first than on the second temporal position, demonstrating that a reduced attentional bias towards the second temporal position increased interference from a distractor presented on the first temporal position. This supports a crucial assumption of the attentional adjustment account of the CSE. Performance in the temporal search task, however, provided no evidence for attentional adjustment.
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Notes
Note that the experimental design was not a factorial design as the condition in the preceding trial was categorized in terms of congruency if the preceding trial involved the flanker task and in terms of the temporal target position if the preceding trial involved the temporal search task. This arrangement allows for a comparison of the CSE and the hypothesized modulation of the Congruency Effect brought about by attending to a target stimulus presented on the first vs. second temporal position.
Additional analyses of search task performance, confined to the data of the 23 participants who produced valid data in the flanker task, did not substantively alter the pattern of results. In particular, the two-way interaction of Congruency in the Preceding Trial and Temporal Target Position failed to reach statistical significance in both RTs and error rates, F(1, 22) < 1 p = 0.46, and F(1, 22) = 1.36, p = 0.13, respectively. Also, there were no significant three-way interactions, involving Congruent/Incongruent Ratio, F(1, 22) < 1, p = 0.35, and F(1, 22) < 1, p = 0.43, for RTs and error rates, respectively. In the RT analysis, the main effect of Congruency in the Preceding Trial was replicated from the analysis including all participants, F(1, 22) = 4.09, p = 0.0028, ηp2 = 0.00067. Thus, we observed a general slowing of responses after incongruent flanker task trials but did not obtain evidence in support of attentional adjustment to the previous congruency level.
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This research was funded by a grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) WE 4105/1-2 to Mike Wendt.
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Tomat, M., Wendt, M., Luna-Rodriguez, A. et al. Target–distractor congruency: sequential effects in a temporal flanker task. Psychological Research 84, 292–301 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1061-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1061-0