Learning sequences where conflicting events predict upcoming stimuli

Jiménez, Abrahamse, Méndez and Braem (2019) showed that participants can learn to use sequential color-color contingencies in a Stroop-task in order to respond faster and more accurately, but they failed to find the same learning pattern with sequential color-congruency contingencies, thus suggesting that people are unable to reliably learn these contingencies. In the current study, we will try to further explore sequential stimulus-response associations: we will attempt to test whether the previous Jiménez, et al. (2019) null-finding was due to people’s inability to learn links between stimuli and control demands across trials, or prepare for next trial’s congruency conditions (e.g., Jiménez, Méndez, Abrahamse, & Braem, 2020). Hence, we will employ a Stroop task where congruency levels predict the color of the next trial (thus, the opposite of Jiménez, et al., 2019, where colors predicted congruency levels). This experiment will allow us to understand whether people are completely incapable to learn contingencies between stimuli and control demands across trials, or, instead, whether they struggle to prepare for congruency conditions, but can use the congruency level of a previous stimulus to gain an advantage in the next one. This gain should be particularly evident during incongruent trials, where the task-relevant dimension (color) and the task-irrelevant dimension (word) overlap, thus generating a conflict. Extended works on cognitive control suggested that internally generated conflict could serve as a cue to upregulate control (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001), thus biasing participants behavior towards goal-relevant features, for example increasing attentional focus (Verguts & Notebaert, 2008). Hence, we expect conflict trials, in which control is increased, to be better cue predictors than congruent trials, in which control is expected to decrease.