The congruency sequence effect (CSE) describes the performance difference of congruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with the same response) compared to incongruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with different responses) as a function of the preceding congruency level (congruent trials relative to incongruent trials). The CSE is commonly interpreted as a measure of conflict-induced attentional adjustment. Although previous research has made substantial progress aiming at controlling for alternative explanations of the CSE, both task-specific and fundamental confounds have remained. In the current study, we used a temporal flanker task, in which two stimuli (i.e., distractor and target) are presented in rapid succession, and extended previous demonstrations of a CSE in flanker tasks by deconfounding target-distractor congruency from perceptual similarity. Using a four-choice task, we could also control for the reversal of distractor-response priming after incongruent trials (which is only feasible in two-choice tasks). Furthermore, we controlled for all confounds based on the sequence (i.e., repetition versus alternation) of the congruency level – such as feature sequence effects, distractor-response contingency switch costs, or temporal learning – by probing the allocation of attention to the points in time of presentation of the first and the second stimulus of a trial. This was achieved by intermixing trials of a temporal search task. The performance accuracy results in this task were consistent with a stronger attentional bias in favor of the target stimulus’ temporal position after incongruent than after congruent trials.

一致性序列效应 (CSE) 描述了一致性试验（其中目标和干扰刺激与相同的反应相关）与不一致试验（其中目标和干扰刺激与不同的反应相关）的性能差异，作为之前的一致性水平（一致的试验相对于不一致的试验）。CSE 通常被解释为衡量冲突引起的注意力调整的指标。尽管先前的研究在控制 CSE 的替代解释方面取得了实质性进展，但任务特定和基本的混淆仍然存在。在目前的研究中，我们使用了时间侧翼任务，其中两个刺激（即干扰物和目标）快速连续呈现，并通过从感知相似性中消除目标干扰一致性，扩展了先前在侧翼任务中的 CSE 演示。使用四选任务，我们还可以控制在不一致的试验后干扰物反应启动的逆转（这仅在二选任务中可行）。此外，我们根据一致性水平的顺序（即重复与交替）控制所有混淆——例如特征序列效应、干扰物-响应应急转换成本或时间学习——通过探索注意力分配到试验的第一个和第二个刺激的呈现时间。这是通过混合时间搜索任务的试验来实现的。