Context-Specific Conflict Adaptation and Consciousness: Specifying Central Mechanisms and Boundary Conditions

认知控制过程和意识的关系在过去的几年里引起了激烈的争论。虽然经典的控制理论假设认知控制和意识之间存在密切联系，但最近的研究结果表明，某些控制过程，如反应的抑制或任务集的激活，可以无意识地触发。然而，迄今为止，关于冲突适应，这是一个中心的认知控制过程，其与意识的关系是相对不一致的。Reuss、Desender、Kidney和Kunde（2014）发现，在特定情况下，当情境和冲突信息都没有被有意识地呈现时，对与某些冲突频率相关的快速变化的情境的适应是可能的。本研究的目的是探讨特定情境冲突适应的内在机制，考察特定情境适应的限制和边界条件，特别是明确有意识刺激表征在不同情境适应中的作用。 我将调查的冲突和上下文的特征是至关重要的（无意识）特定于上下文的适应，适应过程的机制是基于，以及冲突的主观感觉的上下文调制中发挥的作用。在这个项目中，操纵意识允许，一方面，调查的限制和可能性的无意识处理方面的认知控制过程。另一方面，操纵意识也有助于定义特定于上下文的冲突适应的潜在机制，前提条件和特征。 因此，该项目的结果将扩展我们对何时以及如何启动特定认知过程所需的意识的理解，并指定特定于上下文的冲突适应功能。

The relation of cognitive control processes and awareness was intensely debated in the last few years. While classic theories of control assume a close link between cognitive control and awareness, recent findings suggest that certain control processes, like the inhibition of responses, or the activation of task sets, can be triggered unconsciously. However, hitherto findings regarding conflict adaptation, which is a central cognitive control process, and its relation with awareness are relatively inconsistent. Reuss, Desender, Kiesel, and Kunde (2014) found that, under particular circumstances, an adaptation to quickly changing contexts that are associated with certain conflict frequencies is possible when neither the context nor the conflict information is represented consciously. The goal of this project is to investigate the underlying mechanisms of context-specific conflict adaptation, to examine the limits and boundary conditions of context-specific adaptation, and especially to specify the role of conscious stimulus representations in different aspects of contextual adaptation. I will investigate which characteristics of the conflict and of the context are crucial for (unconscious) context-specific adaptation, which mechanisms the adaptation process is based on, and which role subjective feeling of conflict plays for the contextual modulation. In this project, manipulating awareness allows, on the one hand, investigating the limits and possibilities of unconscious processing with respect to cognitive control processes. On the other hand, manipulating awareness also helps defining the underlying mechanisms, preconditions, and characteristics of context-specific conflict adaptation. The results of this project will therefore extend our understanding of when and how awareness is necessary to initiate particular cognitive processes, and specify how context-specific conflict adaption functions.