Explore the vast range of titles available.

The arousal level of words presented in a Stroop task was found to affect their interference on the required naming of the words' color. Based on a dual-processes approach, we propose that there are two aspects to activation: arousal and subjective significance. Arousal is crucial for automatic processing. Subjective significance is specific to controlled processing. Based on this conceptual model, we predicted that arousal would enhance interference in a Stroop task, as attention would be allocated to the meaning of the inhibited word. High subjective significance should have the opposite effect, i.e., it should enhance the controlled and explicit part of Stroop task processing, which is color naming. We found that response latencies were modulated by the interaction between the arousal and subjective significance levels of words. The longest reaction times were observed for highly arousing words of medium subjective significance level. Arousal shaped event related potentials in the 150-290 ms time range, while effects of subjective significance were found for 50-150, 150-290, and 290-530 ms time ranges.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether responding to multiple concurrent conflicts results in a simultaneous or sequential conflict resolution. To this end, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) in a paradigm combining a Stroop and a flanker task. In this paradigm, participants were asked to respond to the color of the central letter while ignoring the meaning of the word (Stroop task) and the color of the flanking letters (flanker task). Trials were either incongruent (i.e., inducing a conflict between two response alternatives) or congruent (i.e., inducing no response conflict) in both tasks, or incongruent in one task and congruent in the other task. The behavioral results showed a smaller Stroop congruency effect (i.e., a smaller difference between Stroop incongruent and congruent trials) for flanker incongruent than for flanker congruent trials, replicating previous findings. The ERP results showed that an early ERP component (i.e., P2) was associated with the resolution of the flanker conflict, whereas a later component (i.e., N450) was associated with the resolution of the Stroop conflict. Together, these findings emphasize a sequential organization of conflict resolution processes in the brain which is adaptive when facing multiple concurrent conflicts. •Combining a Stroop task with a flanker task shows a sequential conflict resolution.•Resolution of the flanker conflict was associated with an early P2.•Resolution of the Stroop conflict was associated with a later N450.•A sequential organization is adaptive when facing multiple concurrent conflicts.

The present study is the first to measure event-related potentials associated with the processing of the emotional Stroop task (EST) with the use of an orthogonal factorial manipulation for emotional valence, arousal, and subjective significance (the importance of the current experience for goals and plans for the future). The current study aimed to investigate concurrently the role of the three dimensions describing the emotion-laden words for interference control measured in the classical version of the EST paradigm. The results showed that reaction times were affected by the emotional valence of presented words and the interactive effect of valence and arousal. The expected emotional arousal effect was only found in behavioral results for neutrally valenced words. Electrophysiological results showed valence and subjective significance correlated with the amplitude differences in the P2 component. Moreover, the amplitude of the N450 component varied with the level of subjective significance. This study also demonstrated that exploratory event-related potential analysis provides additional information beyond the classical component-based analysis. The obtained results show that cognitive control effects in the EST may be altered by manipulation in the subjective significance dimension.

Increasing evidence suggests that music training correlates with better performance in tasks measuring executive function components including inhibitory control, working memory and selective attention. The Stroop and Simon tasks measure responses to congruent and incongruent information reflecting cognitive conflict resolution. However, there are more reports of a music-training advantage in the Simon than the Stroop task. Reports indicate that these tasks may differ in the timing of conflict resolution: the Stroop task might involve early sensory stage conflict resolution, while the Simon task may do so at a later motor output planning stage. We hypothesize that musical experience relates to conflict resolution at the late motor output stage rather than the early sensory stage. Behavioral responses, and event-related potentials (ERP) were measured in participants with varying musical experience during these tasks. It was hypothesized that musical experience correlates with better performance in the Simon but not the Stroop task, reflected in ERP components in the later stage of motor output processing in the Simon task. Participants were classified into high- and low-music training groups based on the Goldsmith Musical Sophistication Index. Electrical brain activity was recorded while they completed visual Stroop and Simon tasks. The high-music training group outperformed the low-music training group on the Simon, but not the Stroop task. Mean amplitude difference (incongruent—congruent trials) was greater for the high-music training group at N100 for midline central (Cz) and posterior (Pz) sites in the Simon task and midline central (Cz) and frontal (Fz) sites in the Stroop task, and at N450 at Cz and Pz in the Simon task. N450 difference peaks occurred earlier in the high-music training group at Pz. Differences between the groups at N100 indicate that music training may be related to better sensory discrimination. These differences were not related to better behavioral performance. Differences in N450 responses between the groups, particularly in regions encompassing the motor and parietal cortices, suggest a role of music training in action selection during response conflict situations. Overall, this supports the hypothesis that music training selectively enhances cognitive conflict resolution during late motor output planning stages.

Many gene variants may impair our health and cognitive abilities at old age, but some of them paradoxically improve the same or similar functions at much younger age (antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis). Such a diametric pattern may also hold true for the ancestral Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele, which increases the risk for Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline in old age, but may benefit (pre)frontal (executive) functions in young carriers. We therefore investigated potential cognitive benefits of the risk allele on cognitive control capacities and top-down control allocation (“metacontrol”) in n = 190 healthy young adults. On a behavioral level, we found young APOE ε4 carriers to better adapt to different degrees of cognitive control requirements, with superior performance in case of high control demands. On a neurophysiological level, these group differences were reflected by modulations of the N450 component, which were rooted in activation differences of the superior frontal gyrus (SFG, BA8). Taken together, our results suggest that young ε4 carriers are more efficient than non-carriers at allocating cognitive control resources based on the actual task requirements (i.e. metacontrol), as they seem to experience less conflict/exert less effort and recruit fewer additional prefrontal areas when task set complexity increases. We further found that ε2 carriers processed implicit spatial stimulus features to a stronger degree than ε3 and ε4 carriers, but failed to benefit from this, as the additional information likely increased response selection conflicts. This finding should however be treated with ample caution as the group of ε2 carriers was comparatively small. •We investigated the effect of APOE genotype on cognition in young healthy controls.•ε4 allele improved metacontrol and reduced task-related effort in young carriers.•This was associated with reduced recruitment of SFG/BA8 under high cognitive load.•ε2 carriers showed enhanced spatial processing, potentially resulting in conflicts.•As ε4 is detrimental in old age, our findings demonstrate antagonistic pleiotropy.

Effective psychological function requires that cognition is not affected by task-irrelevant emotional stimuli in emotional conflict. Depression is mainly characterized as an emotional disorder. The object of this study is to reveal the behavioral and electrophysiological signature of emotional conflict processing in major depressive disorder (MDD) using event-related potentials (ERPs) and standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) analysis. We used a face-word Stroop task involving emotional faces while recording EEG (electroencephalography) in 20 patients with MDD and 20 healthy controls (HCs). And then ERPs were extracted and the corresponding brain sources were reconstructed using sLORETA. Behaviorally, subjects with MDDs manifested significantly increased Stroop effect when examining the RT difference between happy incongruent trials and happy congruent trials, compared with HC subjects. ERP results exhibited that MDDs were characterized by the attenuated difference between P300 amplitude to sad congruent stimuli and sad incongruent stimuli, as electrophysiological evidence of impaired conflict processing in subjects with MDD. The sLORETA results showed that MDD patients had a higher current density in rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rostral ACC) within N450 time window in response to happy incongruent trials than happy congruent stimuli. Moreover, HC subjects had stronger activity in right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) region in response to incongruent stimuli than congruent stimuli, revealing successful inhibition of emotional distraction in HCs, which was absent in MDDs. Our results indicated that rostral ACC was implicated in the processing of negative emotional distraction in MDDs, as well as impaired inhibition of task-irrelevant emotional stimuli, relative to HCs. This work furnishes novel behavioral and neurophysiological evidence that are closely related to emotional conflict among MDD patients.

The constant internal monitoring of speech is a crucial feature to ensure the fairly error-free process of speech production. It has been argued that internal speech monitoring takes place through detection of conflict between different response options or “speech plans”. Speech errors are thought to occur because two (or more) competing speech plans become activated, and the speaker is unable to inhibit the erroneous plan(s) prior to vocalization. A prime example for a speech plan that has to be suppressed is the involuntary utterance of a taboo word. The present study seeks to examine the suppression of involuntary taboo word utterances. We used the “Spoonerisms of Laboratory Induced Predisposition” (SLIP) paradigm to elicit two competing speech plans, one being correct and one embodying either a taboo word or a non-taboo word spoonerism. Behavioral data showed that inadequate speech plans generally were effectively suppressed, although more effectively in the taboo word spoonerism condition. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis revealed a broad medial frontal negativity (MFN) after the target word pair presentation, interpreted as reflecting conflict detection and resolution to suppress the inadequate speech plan. The MFN was found to be more pronounced in the taboo word spoonerism compared to the neutral word spoonerism condition, indicative of a higher level of conflict when subjects suppressed the involuntary utterance of taboo words.

Moral judgment can be highly affected by the action and intention factors on a behavior level. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the intention factor can modulate both the affective and cognitive processing of moral judgment. The present event-related potentials (ERP) study examined how the action factor modulated the neural dynamics of moral judgment under a newly developed moral dilemma paradigm including three different conditions: harm caused by action (i.e., doing harm), harm caused by omission (i.e., allowing harm), and no harm. Behavior data showed that participants preferred utilitarian judgments and spent less time on the allowing harm condition than for the doing harm condition. ERP results revealed that, compared with the doing harm and no harm dilemmas, the allowing harm dilemmas elicited an enhanced N450 response associated with cognitive control and/or cognitive effort processes, but attenuated a late positive potentials (LPP) response associated with top-down control of attention and cognitive “rational” control processes. Such LPP amplitude differences were positively correlated with the C-score of the moral competence test which indexed the cognitive aspect of moral judgment competency. These findings suggested that people have a strong omission bias, and such an action factor modulates the conscious reasoning process during moral judgment, including the cognitive control and/or cognitive effort, and attentional allocation processes.

We investigated emotional conflict in an educational context with an emotional body-word Stroop paradigm, examining whether the N450 (a late fronto-central phasic negative event-related potential signature) and slow potential (SP) effects could be evoked in trainee teachers. The N450 effect is characterized by topography and negative polarity of an incongruent minus congruent difference potential, and the SP effect has positive polarity (incongruent minus congruent difference potential). Positive and negative body language examples were obtained from pupils in an actual school context, and emotional words were selected. Compound stimuli were presented, each comprising a congruent or incongruent word displayed across a body image. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants judged body expression valence. Reaction times were longer and accuracies were lower for the incongruent compared to the congruent condition. The N450 component amplitude in the incongruent condition was more negative than in the congruent condition. Results showed a behavioral interference effect and an N450 effect for trainee teachers in this context, thus indicating that the body-word task was efficient in assessing emotional conflict in an educational context, and trainee teachers' perception of body expressions of students could be influenced by emotional signals. The findings further the understanding of emotional conflict in an educational context.

Survivors of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often demonstrate impairments in the cognitive control functions of detecting response conflict and signaling for recruitment of cognitive resources to appropriately adjust performance. These cognitive control functions can be measured using conflict adaptation effects, wherein manifestations of conflict detection and processing are reduced following high- relative to low-conflict trials. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected while 18 survivors of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 21 demographically matched control participants performed a modified Stroop task. The incongruent-minus-congruent trial Stroop effect for trials preceded by incongruent (high conflict) and congruent (low conflict) trials were compared for behavioral (response time [RT] and error rate) and ERP reflections of cognitive control. Behavioral data showed a reduction in the Stroop effect for both control and TBI participant RTs when preceded by incongruent trials. The magnitude of these effects did not differentiate control and TBI participants. ERP data revealed a centro-parietal conflict slow potential (conflict SP) that differentiated incongruent from congruent trials. Planned comparisons showed a decreased amplitude conflict SP when ERPs were preceded by incongruent trials in control, but not TBI participants. Results indicate subtle TBI-related impairments in conflict resolution mechanisms in the context of intact RT-related conflict adaptation. (JINS, 2009, 15, 927–937.)