Can Contingency Learning Alone Account for Item-Specific Control? Evidence From Within- and Between-Language ISPC Effects


Atalay N. B., Mısırlısoy M.

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION, vol.38, no.6, pp.1578-1590, 2012 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 38 Issue: 6
  • Publication Date: 2012
  • Doi Number: 10.1037/a0028458
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.1578-1590
  • Keywords: item-specific proportion congruence, cognitive control, conflict monitoring, contingency learning, within- and between-language Stroop, STROOP PROCESS DISSOCIATIONS, PICTURE-WORD INTERFERENCE, WORKING-MEMORY CAPACITY, PROPORTION CONGRUENT, AUTOMATIC PROCESSES, COGNITIVE CONTROL, TASK, ATTENTION, PERFORMANCE, ADAPTATION
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The item-specific proportion congruence (ISPC) manipulation (Jacoby, Lindsay, & Hessels, 2003) produces larger Stroop interference for mostly congruent items than mostly incongruent items. This effect has been attributed to dynamic control over word-reading processes. However, proportion congruence of an item in the ISPC manipulation is completely confounded with response contingency, suggesting the alternative hypothesis, that the ISPC effect is a result of learning response contingencies (Schmidt & Besner, 2008). The current study asks whether the ISPC effect can be explained by a pure stimulus response contingency-learning account, or whether other control processes play a role as well, by comparing within- and between-language conditions in a bilingual task. Experiment 1 showed that contingency learning for noncolor words was larger for the within-language than the between-language condition. Experiment 2 revealed significant ISPC effects for both within- and between-language conditions; importantly, the effect was larger in the former. The results of the contingency analyses for Experiment 2 were parallel to that of Experiment 1 and did not show an interaction between contingency and congruency. Put together, these sets of results support the view that contingency-learning processes dominate color word ISPC effects.