Conflict adaptation

Alexander Heinemann, Wilfried Kunde, Susanne Augst

Conflict occurs when actors have to decide between different behavioral options, mostly because the environment suggests a certain action, when another action would actually be more appropriate. A typical experimental example is the Stroop task. Here actors tend to read aloud color words, while they are actually required to name the ink color in which the color words are written. Humans adapt to such conflicts. Specifically, after conflict has been experienced, they try harder to focus on relevant information and to ignore irrelevant information. At present, we study several aspects of such conflict adaption. For example, is there carry-over between different types of conflict? Is conflict due to emotionally relevant information special? Can actors prepare for forthcoming conflict in addition to adapting to recent conflict? Is a conscious representation of the conflict necessary for adaptation? Part of this work is supported by the German Research Council (DFG).

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Kunde, W. & Wühr, P. (2006). Sequential modulations of correspondence effects across spatial dimensions and tasks. Memory & Cognition, 34(2), 356-367.