A series of experiments examined both the phenomenological nature and centrality of
Cognitive Control in common cognitive paradigms. This was done primarily by
employing manipulations of Congruency Proportion (CP), which are thought to modulate
key aspects of Cognitive Control. Experiment 1 leads this investigation by examining the
degree to which participants are consciously aware of the influence of CP in the Simon
task. Here, it was observed that participants’ subjective reports of the proportion of
congruent trials did not predict their actual CP effects, suggesting a non-conscious locus of
CP effects. Experiments 2 and 3 followed up these preliminary findings by assessing the
degree to which CP effects differentially modulate the application of Cognitive Control in
two variants of the size congruity paradigm (Numerical Judgement and Physical
Judgement). Here, I found that manipulations of CP significantly impacted the Numerical
Judgement task, but not the Physical Judgement task, and thus seriously challenge the
notion of a central and unitary Cognitive Control module. In Experiment 4, I assessed the
systematic variation (via correlations) of effects from the size congruity paradigm and the
Stroop task across blocks of trials at different levels of CP. In addition, I examined the
degree to which the effects of CP were related to common self report measures of
Cognitive Control (the Need for Cognition scale and Cognitive Failures Questionnaire).
The pattern of within-task and between-task reliabilities was examined to elucidate the
degree to which there is a common central control component that governs behaviour in all
tasks. There was surprisingly little to no relation among the CP effects observed in these
three tasks. In addition, neither participants’ engagement with the task (as indexed by theNeed for Cognition Scale), nor their propensity to have attentional slips (as indexed by the
Cognitive Failures Questionnaire) predicted their performance in any way. Taken
together, this set of experiments has seriously undermined the received view that CP
effects arise from a central and unitary form of conscious control. These results are
discussed in terms of contemporary theories of Cognitive Control.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:WATERLOO/oai:uwspace.uwaterloo.ca:10012/5991 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Borgmann, Karl Wilhelm Uwe |
| Source Sets | University of Waterloo Electronic Theses Repository |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
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