Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
7285315 Cognition 2018 24 Pages PDF
Abstract
Recent work using the Picture Word Interference (PWI) paradigm has revealed that language production, similar to non-verbal tasks, shows a robust Congruency Sequence Effect (CSE), defined as a decreased congruency effect following incongruent trials. Although CSE is considered an index of adaptive control, its mechanism is debated. In two experiments, we tested the predictions of a learning model of adaptive control in production, using a task-switching paradigm fully balanced to evaluate CSE on a PWI trial as a function of the congruency of a 2-back PWI trial (within-task CSE), as well as a 1-back trial belonging to a different task (cross-task CSE). The second task was a visuospatial task with congruent and incongruent trials in Experiment 1, and a self-paced reading task with ambiguous and unambiguous sentences in Experiment 2 that imposed a gap between the two PWI trials twice as long of that in Experiment 1. A learning model posits that CSE is the result of changes to the connection weights between task-specific representations and a control center, which leads to two predictions in our paradigm: (a) a robust within-task CSE unaffected by the intervening trial and the gap duration, and (b) an absent or reversed cross-task CSE. These predictions were contrasted with two versions of an activation model of CSE. In accord with the predictions of the learning model, we found robust within-task CSE in PWI in both Experiments with a comparable effect size. Similarly, evidence of within-task CSE was also found in the visuospatial and sentence reading tasks. On the other hand, examination of cross-task CSE from PWI to the other tasks and vice versa revealed either absent or reversed CSE. Collectively, these results support a learning model of adaptive control in language production.
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