Experiment 1 found that reverse compatibility effects, indicative of contingent response inhibition (CRI), disappeared at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) of 100ms and 0ms between flankers and targets. Experiment 2 found that spatially separating the response-defining color from the flanker eliminated reverse compatibility effects, suggesting CRI requires the color be integral to the flanker "object". The results provide additional evidence for CRI and indicate it follows a timecourse requiring 100-200ms, operating on object-level representations.

1. • Anderson and Folk (2012, 2014) have provided evidence that
automatic response inhibition can be contingent on the goal state
of the observer, a phenomenon known as Contingent Response
Inhibition (CRI):
• Using a Go/No-Go version of the Eriksen flankers task
participants reported the identity of a centrally-presented
letter, but only if it possessed the “go” color specific to that
trial (which was randomly selected from two colors for each
trial)
• When irrelevant flankers appeared in the “go” color, standard
compatibility effects were observed. However, when
irrelevant flankers appeared in the “no go” color, reverse
compatibility effects obtained, consistent with automatic
response inhibition that is contingent on the top-down
control settings for the response “color trigger”
Leeland L. Rogers1, Rebecca Garrison1, Charles L. Folk1 and Brian A. Anderson2
1Villanova University 2Johns Hopkins University
Contingent Response Inhibition Experiment 1:
Timecourse of CRI
Experiment 2: Is CRI
object-based?
Research Questions
Go
Trial
560
570
580
590
600
610
GO NO-GO
ResponseTime(RT)
Flanker Color-Response Mapping
Compatible
Incompatible
• Timecourse: How much time is
required for the build-up of
CRI? How does CRI vary as
the flanker-target onset
asynchrony approaches 0 ms?
• Representational Basis: Is CRI
“object-based”? Does CRI
require that the eliciting “no-
go” color be a feature of the
flanker as an object?
Using the same paradigm as Anderson and Folk (2014), we
explored the timecourse of CRI by systematically varying the
stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between 200, 100, and 0 ms
• Half of the trials required participants to withhold
responding
• The other half of trials included the four different trial types
of interest
• The first screen of every trial indicated the “go” color (red
or blue).
Using the same paradigm as Anderson and Folk (2014), we
probed the representation basis of CRI by spatially separating
the color from the flanker letter itself
• Boxes were placed around the flankers and the target
letters
• Only the flanking boxes carried color information
• The control experiment was identical to Anderson and Folk
(2013), with the exception of white boxes around the stimuli
(i.e., the boxes did not carry color information) and the
fixation cross being replaced with a fixation box
Experimental Condition Control Condition
Experiment 1
• Replicated reverse compatibility
effects for No-Go colored flankers
• No evidence of reverse compatibility
was found for the 100 ms or 0 ms
conditions.
Experiment 2
• Replicated reverse compatibility effects
for No-Go colored flankers
• Spatially separating “go” and “no-go”
colors from the flankers themselves
preserved compatibility effects but
eliminated reverse compatibility effects.
Anderson, B. & Folk, C. L. (2014). Conditional Automaticity in
Response Selection: Contingent Involuntary Response Inhibition with
Varied Stimulus-Response Mapping. Psychological Science, 25, 547
– 554.
Anderson, B. A., & Folk, C. L. (2012). Contingent involuntary motoric
inhibition: The involuntary inhibition of a motor response contingent on
top-down goals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human
Perception and Performance, 38, 1348-152.
.
Contingent
Response
Inhibition
Results
Evidence suggests CRI disappears when no-go color is not a
feature of the flanker itself
560.00
570.00
580.00
590.00
600.00
610.00
620.00
630.00
640.00
Go No-Go
Compatible Incompatible
560.00
570.00
580.00
590.00
600.00
610.00
620.00
630.00
640.00
Go No-Go
Compatible Incompatible
560.00
570.00
580.00
590.00
600.00
610.00
620.00
630.00
640.00
Go No-Go
Compatible Incompatible
0 ms SOA 100 ms SOA 200 ms SOA
XA A
+A A
+
BLUE
1000 ms
500 ms
400 – 600 ms
200 ms
100 ms
1200 ms or
until response
References
515
525
535
545
555
565
575
Go No-Go
Compatible Incompatible
515
525
535
545
555
565
575
Go No-Go
Compatible Incompatible
Experimental Condition Control Condition
XA A
+A A
+
RED
1000 ms
500 ms
400 – 600 ms
200 ms
100 ms
1200 ms or
until response
Evidence suggests that CRI varies as a function of SOA
0 ms SOA 100 ms SOA 200 ms SOA
Go No-Go
ns
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Go Colored Flankers
No-Go Colored Flankers
Incompatible
**
*
**
Results
*
nsns
nsns
Incompatible Minus Compatible
Summary
- Additional evidence that
automatic response inhibition
is contingent on top-down control
settings (CRI)
- CRI follows a systematic timecourse
requiring at least 100 – 200 ms
to accrue
- CRI requires that the response-defining
feature is an integral part of the
flanker, suggesting that it operates
on object-level representations
Conclusions
No-Go
Trial
Compatible