The Effect Of Distraction Stimulation And Cue Information Maintenance On Proactive Control

Cognitive control is a popular research topic in cognitive psychology,and a dual cognitive control theory has been proposed in recent years to shed light on the variability of cognitive control and describe its temporal dynamics.According to this theory,there are two types of cognitive control: proactive control and reactive control.Proactive control involves preparing cues in advance to prevent conflict,while reactive control involves recalling cues after conflict has arisen to resolve it.This framework provides a useful way to understand the different mechanisms involved in cognitive control and how they operate over time.In laboratory studies,the examination of proactive and reactive control often involves the use of the AX-CPT task with interference conditions.These conditions involve the insertion of distracting stimuli between cue and probe stimuli to investigate their effects on proactive and reactive control.Several factors such as distracting stimuli,emotion,and the duration of cue message maintenance can influence proactive and reactive control,though there is some debate surrounding their effects.These factors mainly affect the cue processing stage,and primarily influence proactive control.The effect of distracting stimuli on proactive control remains controversial,with some studies indicating that distracting stimuli enhance proactive control,while others suggest that they weaken it.The influence of emotion on proactive control is also a subject of disagreement,with positive emotions having both enhancing and weakening effects.Similarly,the effect of cue message maintenance time on proactive control is unclear,with some studies indicating that it has no effect,while others suggest that long delay conditions weaken proactive control and short delay conditions facilitate it.This paper aims to explore the effects of distracting stimuli on proactive control,categorize distracting stimuli on the affective validity dimension,and examine whether distracting stimuli with different emotional validity have a generalized effect on proactive control in terms of cue message maintenance factors.The thesis contains two studies of three sub-experiments.In Study 1,we investigated the impact of distracting stimuli on proactive control,using the AX-CPT task under distracting conditions.We employed a within-subjects experimental design with a 2(distracting stimulus: present,absent)× 4(sequence type: AX,AY,BX,BY)factor structure,with response time and accuracy on the AX-CPT task serving as dependent variables.Our findings demonstrated that the proactive control index was significantly higher in the presence of distracting stimuli compared to the absence of distracting stimuli.These results suggest that the presence of irrelevant stimuli can enhance individual proactive control during task performance.Study 2 aimed to investigate the impact of emotional potency of distracting stimuli on proactive control under short(2s)and long(5s)cue information maintenance time conditions.The study involved two subexperiments,both of which utilized the AX-CPT task with interference conditions.Experiment 2a followed a within-subject design with a 2(emotional potency: positive emotion,negative emotion)× 4(sequence type: AX sequence,AY sequence,BX sequence,and BY sequence)design under a short cue information maintenance time condition(2s).The dependent variables included reaction time and correctness on the AX-CPT task.Results indicated that the proactive control index was significantly higher in the negative emotional distractor stimulus condition than in the positive emotional distractor stimulus condition.This suggests that subjects demonstrated greater proactive control when presented with negative emotional distractor stimuli as opposed to positive emotional distractor stimuli.Experiment 2b utilized a mixed experimental design involving 2(emotional potency: positive emotion,negative emotion)× 4(sequence type:AX sequence,AY sequence,BX sequence and BY sequence)to examine the effect of emotional potency on the proactive control of distracting stimulus material in a condition with long cue information maintenance time(5 s).Emotional potency was considered a between-subjects variable,while sequence type was considered a within-subjects variable.The dependent variables were response time and correctness for the AX-CPT task.Results revealed that there was no significant difference in the proactive control index between the positive emotional distractor stimulus condition and the negative emotional distractor stimulus condition in the long cued information maintenance condition.These findings suggest that the duration of cued information maintenance moderates the effect of emotional potency of distracting stimuli on proactive control.Based on the above studies,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1)The presentation of distracting stimuli has been found to enhance an individual’s proactive control.Furthermore,the emotional potency of the distracting stimuli can have a differential effect on proactive control.(2)The relationship between distracting stimulus emotional potency and proactive control is moderated by the length of time that cue information is maintained.