In search of Perruchet’s dissociation between expectancy and control in the flanker task
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Adaptation to cognitive conflict has been demonstrated in the form of reduced congruency effects following runs of high conflict (incongruent) trials, and increased effects following runs of low conflict (congruent) trials, known as the progressive congruency sequence effect ( PCSE ). This phenomenon has been attributed to an expectancy for conflict, yet direct evidence linking expectancy to performance is limited. Here we leveraged a dissociation paradigm known as the Perruchet effect to test the role of expectancy in producing conflict adaptation. Using variations of the flanker task, we ran three experiments investigating how expectancy influences conflict adaptation. Experiment 1 assessed the effect of expectancy for conflict specifically on the PCSE by manipulating the feature relevant to the expectancy rating (conflict expectancy vs. response expectancy). Experiment 2 aimed to increase motivation to produce accurate expectancies by directly incentivising the rating task. Experiment 3 addressed unexpected patterns in expectancy by examining participant’s ability to track conflict history. Across Experiments 1 and 2, participants did not show reliable conflict expectancy trends. Experiment 3 revealed that this may be because some participants exhibit poor explicit recall of conflict history. Importantly, the PCSE remained robust across all experiments and conditions. This series of experiments suggests that the PCSE in the flanker task operates independently of conscious expectancy, challenging expectancy-based accounts of adaptive control.
Source: Scientific Reports
Institution: The University of Sydney
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
OpenAlex ID: W7169170963