Previous research has shown that, like faces, words are processed either holistically or through the automatic representation of their parts combined. The automaticity assumed to underlie the holistic processing of words presupposes that individuals have a relatively low level of control over these processes. However, they may also be capable of learning from their environments whether processing words as a whole is the most efficient processing strategy-which would require at least some control over the corresponding processes. In fact, previous research supports this latter account in the context of the holistic processing of faces: when provided a task in which participants should ignore half of a stimuli (the irrelevant part) and pay selective attention to the other half (the target part), the participants become better at ignoring the irrelevant part when it is commonly misleading (i.e., this suggests a response that is different from that of the relevant part in the context of the task). In the present work, we extend these considerations to holistic word processing. Our results support a learned attentional account in the context of holistic word processing. When an irrelevant word part is systematically helpful for the judgment of a target word half, participants engage more in holistic processing (vs. when the irrelevant word half is misleading). This reflects an incidental statistical learning process in which individuals identify the irrelevant word half as either providing helpful or misleading information about the target half.

In the present study, we investigated the influence of performance-contingent reward prospects on task performance across three visual conflict tasks with manual responses (Experiments 1 & 2: Simon and Stroop tasks; Experiment 3: Simon and Eriksen flanker task) using block-wise (Experiment 1) and trial-wise (Experiments 2 & 3) manipulations to signal the possibility of reward. Across all experiments, task performance (in reaction time and/or error rates) generally improved in reward compared with no-reward conditions in each conflict task. However, there was, if any, little evidence that the reward manipulation modulated the size of the mean conflict effects, and there was also no evidence for conflict-specific effects of reward when controlling for time-varying fluctuations in conflict processing via distributional analyses (delta plots). Thus, the results provide no evidence for conflict-specific accounts and instead favor performance-general accounts, where reward anticipation leads to overall performance improvements without affecting conflict effects. We discuss possible implications for how proactive control might modulate the interplay between target- and distractor-processing in conflict tasks.

Theories of embodied cognition suggest that hand motions and cognition are closely interconnected. An emerging technique of tracking how participants move a computer mouse (i.e., the mouse-tracking technique) has shown advantages over the traditional response time measurement to detect implicit cognitive conflicts. Previous research suggests that attention is essential for subliminal processing to take place at a semantic level. However, this assumption is challenged by evidence showing the presence of subliminal semantic processing in the near-absence of attention. The inconsistency of evidence could stem from the insufficient sensitivity in the response time measurement. Therefore, we examined the role of attention in subliminal semantic processing by analyzing participants\' hand motions using the mouse-tracking technique. The results suggest that subliminal semantic processing is not only enhanced by attention but also occurs when attention is disrupted, challenging the necessity of facilitated top-down attention for subliminal semantic processing, as claimed by a number of studies. In addition, by manipulating the color of attentional cues, our experiment shows that the cue color per se could influence participants\' response patterns. Overall, the current study suggests that attentional status and subliminal semantic processing can be reliably revealed by temporal-spatial features extracted from cursor motion trajectories.

The present study investigated global behavioral adaptation effects to conflict arising from different distractor modalities. Three experiments were conducted using an Eriksen flanker paradigm with constant visual targets, but randomly varying auditory or visual distractors. In Experiment 1, the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials was varied for both distractor modalities, whereas in Experiments 2A and 2B, this proportion congruency (PC) manipulation was applied to trials with one distractor modality (inducer) to test potential behavioral transfer effects to trials with the other distractor modality (diagnostic). In all experiments, mean proportion congruency effects (PCEs) were present in trials with a PC manipulation, but there was no evidence of transfer to diagnostic trials in Experiments 2A and 2B. Distributional analyses (delta plots) provided further evidence for distractor modality-specific global behavioral adaptations by showing differences in the slope of delta plots with visual but not auditory distractors when increasing the ratio of congruent trials. Thus, it is suggested that distractor modalities constrain global behavioral adaptation effects due to the learning of modality-specific memory traces (e.g., distractor-target associations) and/or the modality-specific cognitive control processes (e.g., suppression of modality-specific distractor-based activation). Moreover, additional analyses revealed partial transfer of the congruency sequence effect across trials with different distractor modalities suggesting that distractor modality may differentially affect local and global behavioral adaptations.

During the last decades, event-related potential research on the processing of intrinsic and acquired valence has made great progress, but the two dimensions rarely varied simultaneously. Only that way, however, can we investigate whether the acquisition of extrinsic valence varies with intrinsic valence and whether intrinsic and acquired valence share the same brain mechanisms. Forty-five participants performed associative learning of gains and losses, using pictures varying on intrinsic valence (positive, negative) and outcome (90 % gain, 50 %/50 %, 90 % loss). 64-channel EEG was recorded. During acquisition, one picture from each valence/outcome combination was repeatedly presented, followed by abstract outcome information (+10 ct, -10 ct) at the predefined probability. In the test phase, participants pressed buttons to earn the real gains and avoid the real losses associated with the pictures. Here, effects of outcome and/or its congruence with intrinsic valence were observed for RT, error rate, frontal theta power, posterior P2, P300, and LPP. Moreover, outcome systematically affected post-test valence and arousal ratings. During acquisition, a contingency effect (90 % > 50 %) on amplitude of a frontal negative slow wave accompanied the progress of learning, independently of outcome, valence, and congruence. The relative absence of outcome effects during acquisition suggests \"cold\" semantic rather than genuinely affective processing of gains and losses. However, with real gains and losses in the test phase, \"hot\" affective processing took place, and outcome and its congruence with intrinsic valence influenced behavior and neural processing. Finally, the data suggest both shared and distinct brain mechanisms of intrinsic and acquired valence.

Numerical cognition provides an opportunity to study the underlying processes of selective attention to numerical information in the face of conflicting, non-numerical, information of different magnitudes. For instance, in the numerical Stroop paradigm, participants are asked to judge pairs of Arabic digits whose physical size can either be congruent (e.g., 3 vs. 5) or incongruent (e.g., 3 vs. 5) with numerical value. Congruency effects when deciding which of the two digits is numerically larger are thought to reflect the inhibition of the irrelevant physical size. However, few studies have investigated the impact of the salience of the irrelevant non-numerical information on these congruency effects and their neural substrates. EEG was recorded in 32 adults during a numerical Stroop task with two levels of salience (low, high) of the irrelevant size dimension. At the behavioral level, we observed larger congruency effects in the high salience condition (i.e., when the difference in size between the two digits is larger). At the neural level, at centro-parietal electrodes, we replicated previous studies showing a main effect of congruency on event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes between 280 and 370 ms post-stimulus, as well as a main effect of salience around 200 ms post-stimulus. Crucially, congruency and salience interacted both between 230 and 250 ms (P2), and between 290 and 340 ms (P3). These results provide support for separate processes underlying the increase in congruency effect, which can be attributed to higher demands in both the inhibition of the irrelevant dimension, and the attention to the relevant numerical information.

Non-numeric stimulus features frequently influence observers\' number judgments: when judging the number of items in a display, we will often (mis)perceive the set with a larger cumulative surface area as more numerous. These \"congruency effects\" are often used as evidence for how vision extracts numeric information and have been invoked in arguments surrounding whether non-numeric cues (e.g., cumulative area, density, etc.) are combined for number perception. We test whether congruency effects for one such cue - cumulative area - provide evidence that it is necessarily used and integrated in number perception, or if its influence on number is malleable. In Experiment 1, we replicate and extend prior work showing that the presence of feedback eliminates congruency effects between number and cumulative area, suggesting that the role of cumulative area in number perception is malleable rather than obligatory. In Experiment 2, we test whether this malleable influence is because of use of prior experiences about how number naturalistically correlates with cumulative area, or the result of response competition, with number and cumulative area actively competing for the same behavioral decision. We preserve cumulative area as a visual cue but eliminate response competition with number by replacing one side of the dot array with its corresponding Hindu-Arabic numeral. Independent of the presence or absence of feedback, we do not observe congruency effects in Experiment 2. These experiments suggest that cumulative area is not necessarily integrated in number perception nor a reflection of a rational use of naturalistic correlations, but rather congruency effects between cumulative area and number emerge as a consequence of response competition. Our findings help to elucidate the mechanism through which non-numeric cues and number interact, and provide an explanation for why congruency effects are only sometimes observed across studies.

Stereotypes facilitate the processing of expectancy-consistent (vs expectancy-inconsistent) information, yet the underlying origin of this congruency effect remains unknown. As such, here we sought to identify the cognitive operations through which stereotypes influence decisional processing. In six experiments, participants responded to stimuli that were consistent or inconsistent with respect to prevailing gender stereotypes. To identify the processes underpinning task performance, responses were submitted to a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis. A consistent pattern of results emerged. Whether manipulated at the level of occupational (Expts. 1, 3, and 5) or trait-based (Expts. 2, 4, and 6) expectancies, stereotypes facilitated task performance and influenced decisional processing via a combination of response and stimulus biases. Specifically, (1) stereotype-consistent stimuli were classified more rapidly than stereotype-inconsistent stimuli; (2) stereotypic responses were favoured over counter-stereotypic responses (i.e., starting-point shift towards stereotypic responses); (3) less evidence was required when responding to stereotypic than counter-stereotypic stimuli (i.e., narrower threshold separation for stereotypic stimuli); and (4) decisional evidence was accumulated more efficiently for stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent stimuli and when targets had a typical than atypical facial appearance. Collectively, these findings elucidate how stereotypes influence person construal.

Mindfulness is frequently associated with improved attention. However, the nature of the relationship between mindfulness and executive attention, a core function of the attentional system, is surprisingly unclear. Studies employing behavioral measures of executive attention have been equivocal. Although neuroscientific studies have yielded more consistent findings, reporting functional and structural changes in executive attention brain regions, the observed changes in brain activity have not been linked to behavioral performance. The current study aimed to fill these gaps in the literature by examining the extent to which trait mindfulness related to behavioral and neurophysiological (indexed by the stimulus-locked P3) measures of executive attention. Results revealed that higher trait mindfulness was related to less flanker interference on accuracy and reaction time, consistent with enhanced executive attention. Critically, mediational analyses showed that the P3 accounted for the relationship between trait mindfulness and executive attention performance, elucidating a neural mechanism through which mindfulness enhances executive attention.

Response-congruency effects in task switching are the observed slowing of response times (RTs) for incongruent targets which afford more than one response (depending on task) in comparison to congruent stimuli that afford just one response regardless of the task. These effects are thought to reflect increased ambiguity during response selection for incongruent stimuli.
The present study presents a meta-analysis of 27 conditions (from 16 separate studies) whose designs allowed investigation of age-related differences in response-congruency effects on RT.
Multilevel modelling of Brinley plots and state-trace plots showed no age-related effect on response congruency beyond that which can be explained by general age-related slowing.
The results add to the growing body of evidence of no age-related decline in measures of attention and executive functioning.