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

近年来，认知控制过程与意识之间的关系引起了激烈的争论。虽然经典的控制理论认为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，可以在无意识中被触发。然而，迄今为止，关于冲突适应这一中心认知控制过程及其与意识的关系的研究结果相对不一致。Reuss, Desender， Kiesel和Kunde（2014）发现，在特定情况下，当上下文和冲突信息都没有被有意识地表示时，对与某些冲突频率相关的快速变化的上下文的适应是可能的。本项目旨在探讨情境特异性冲突适应的潜在机制，考察情境特异性适应的限制和边界条件，特别是明确有意识刺激表征在情境适应的不同方面的作用。我将探讨冲突和情境的哪些特征对于（无意识的）情境特定适应至关重要，适应过程基于哪些机制，以及主观冲突感觉在情境调节中发挥的作用。在这个项目中，操纵意识允许，一方面，调查关于认知控制过程的无意识处理的限制和可能性。另一方面，操纵意识也有助于定义特定情境冲突适应的潜在机制、前提条件和特征。因此，这个项目的结果将扩展我们对意识何时以及如何启动特定认知过程的理解，并指定特定情境的冲突适应如何起作用。

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.