Is conflict adaptation adaptive? An introduction to conflict monitoring theory and the ecological problems it faces

Abstract

Attending to a single stimulus (or dimension of a stimulus) requires filtering out distracting stimuli to avoid producing an incorrect response. The conflict monitoring (or conflict adaptation) account proposes that experience of conflict results in a shift of attention away from distracting stimuli and/or towards the target stimulus. The proportion congruent and congruency sequence effects are two findings often used to argue in favour of the conflict monitoring account. However, there are several potential limitations with conflict monitoring theory. This article explores some of the previously unarticulated (or rarely articulated) supplementary assumptions that must be made for the conflict monitoring account to be consistent with several important findings in the literature, some of which might undermine the initial intuitive appeal of the theory. Indeed, this opinion paper presents the view that conflict adaptation may not actually be particularly adaptive for performance. This article also discusses alternative interpretations of so-called “attentional control” phenomena. According to this view, participants may simply be learning regularities in the task structure that are unintentionally introduced when manipulating conflict (e.g., contingent regularities between distracting stimuli and responses). This sort of learning does benefit performance and is inherent for our functioning in the world, making this a more parsimonious view. Although simplicity is not everything, this article will present the case that the assumptions (often hidden or non-obvious) of conflict monitoring theory are non-trivial and, in many cases, imply relatively non-adaptive processes.