Feeling the Conflict: The Crucial Role of Conflict Experience in Adaptation

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 675 - 683
• Main Authors: Desender, Kobe, Van Opstal, Filip, Van den Bussche, Eva
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2014; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adolescent; Behavior; Behavioral neuroscience; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive systems; Concept of mind; Conflict; Conflict (Psychology); Consciousness; Error rates; Experimental psychology; False alarms; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Miscellaneous; Paradigms; Perception; Priming; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Repetition Priming; Social adaptation; Subject; Subliminal perception; Unconscious mind; Young Adult; conflict experience; priming; Gratton effect; consciousness; conflict adaptation; cognition(s); Human; Consciousness; Priming effect; Cognition; Experimental study; Conflict; Cognitive control; Adaptation
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797613511468

In the study reported here, we examined the role of conflict experience in cognitive adaptation to conflict. Although the experience of conflict is generally neglected in theoretical models of cognitive control, we demonstrated that it plays a critical role in cognitive adaptation. Using a masked-priming paradigm, we showed that conflict adaptation was present only after trials on which participants experienced response conflict. Furthermore, when subjective experience did not coincide with actual conflict, adaptation effects in the error rates were observed after the experience of conflict, not after response conflict. We conclude that the experience of conflict, and not response conflict per se, is the crucial factor underlying cognitive adaptation effects. The current findings provide a new perspective on the question of why the human cognitive system exerts cognitive control, and they suggest that a crucial role of subjective experience is to allow for top-down control of behavior.