Czernochowski, D. & Saße, J.
Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
According to the dual mechanisms of control framework (Braver et al., 2007), two alternate routes may lead to correct response selection. When response conflict is detected, reactive control processes can be recruited immediately before the response, at the expense of longer RTs. If advance preparation is feasible, control processes can be recruited proactively to allow for both rapid and correct response selection. Here, informative or uninformative cues were presented in a cued task-switch paradigm, making advance preparation either feasible or not. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to identify dissociable neural correlates for both control processes. Following informative cues, participants responded about 300 ms faster relative to uninformative cues, suggesting proactive control was recruited successfully. In the corresponding ERPs, a sustained (right-) frontal positivity was observed between 200-500 ms post-cue onset following informative, but not uninformative cues. By contrast, accuracy was high following both types of cues, suggesting that reactive control was recruited successfully. Starting around 200 ms pre-response, the corresponding ERPs revealed a (left-) frontal activity (pre-response negativity) following uninformative relative to informative cues. Both components and performance differences were evident only during mixed-task blocks, consistent with the notion that control processes are recruited selectively to meet higher task demands.