When viewing familiar stimuli (e.g., common words), processing is highly automatized such that it can interfere with the processing of incompatible sensory information. At least two mechanisms may help mitigate this interference. Early selection accounts posit that attentional processes filter out distracting sensory information to avoid conflict. Alternatively, late selection accounts hold that all sensory inputs receive full semantic analysis and that frontal executive mechanisms are recruited to resolve conflict. To test how these mechanisms operate to overcome conflict induced by highly automatized processing, we developed a novel version of the color-word Stroop task, where targets and distractors were simultaneously flickered at different frequencies. We measured the quality of early sensory processing by assessing the amplitude of steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) elicited by targets and distractors. We also indexed frontal executive processes by assessing changes in frontal theta oscillations induced by color-word incongruency. We found that target- and distractor-related SSVEPs were not modulated by changes in the level of conflict whereas frontal theta activity increased on high compared to low conflict trials. These results suggest that frontal executive processes play a more dominant role in mitigating cognitive interference driven by the automatic tendency to process highly familiar stimuli.

中文翻译：

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当冲突无法避免时：早期选择和正面执行控制在减轻斯特鲁普冲突中的相对贡献。


当观看熟悉的刺激（例如，常见的单词）时，处理是高度自动化的，因此它可能会干扰不兼容的感官信息的处理。至少有两种机制可以帮助减轻这种干扰。早期的选择理论认为，注意力过程会过滤掉分散注意力的感官信息，以避免冲突。或者，后期选择的观点认为，所有感觉输入都接受完整的语义分析，并且招募额叶执行机制来解决冲突。为了测试这些机制如何运作以克服高度自动化处理引起的冲突，我们开发了一种新版本的颜色词斯特鲁普任务，其中目标和干扰物以不同的频率同时闪烁。我们通过评估目标和干扰物引起的稳态视觉诱发电位 (SSVEP) 的幅度来测量早期感觉处理的质量。我们还通过评估由颜色词不一致引起的额叶θ振荡的变化来索引额叶执行过程。我们发现，与目标和干扰物相关的 SSVEP 不受冲突水平变化的调节，而与低冲突试验相比，高冲突试验中额叶 θ 活动增加。这些结果表明，额叶执行过程在减轻由自动处理高度熟悉的刺激的倾向所驱动的认知干扰方面发挥着更主导的作用。