20000 Flanker Trials Are the Effects Reliable Robust and Stable Ken Paap 1 Sarah Wagner 1 Hunter Johnson 1 Morgan Bockelman 1 Donish Cushing 1 and Oliver Sawi 12 ID: 284920
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20,000 Flanker Trials: Are the Effects Reliable, Robust, and Stable?
Ken Paap
1,
Sarah Wagner1, Hunter Johnson1,Morgan Bockelman1, Donish Cushing1, and Oliver Sawi1,2 1San Francisco State University, 2University of Connecticut
Executive functions (EFs) consist of a set of general-purpose control processes believed to be central to the self-regulation of thoughts and behaviors that are instrumental to accomplishing goals. EFs include components for inhibitory control, switching, monitoring, and updating.
Introduction
Do Attentional Network Effects Decrease Beyond 20 Sessions?
Executive Function
Time Course of the Flanker Interference Effect:
First it gets larger, then it gets smaller
The Attentional Network Test (ANT)
Test-Retest Reliability of Flanker Effect & 12 other Measures of Executive Function
Conclusion
The flanker effect has moderate test-retest reliability.
As a measure of general inhibitory control, the flanker effect shows low levels of convergent validity.
The magnitude of the flanker effect increases during an initial session, shows little change on a second day, but then continues to decrease for at least 100 sessions.
Unless the flanker task is a potent training exercise for enhancing inhibitory control, the decrease in the flanker effect reflects task-specific learning. Given that the decrease in the flanker effect involves continuous improvement on both congruent and incongruent trials and that they highly correlate, the improvement likely involves a process common to both trial types.
Test-Retest Reliability of 4 Tasks
Magnitude of Flanker Effect over 3 Blocks within a Single Session (n=224)
Magnitude of Flanker Effect over 20 Sessions (n=8)
Magnitude of Flanker Effect over 2 Sessions about a Week Apart (n=79)
Session x Trial Type Interaction
F(1, 78) = 7.36, p = .008
This 7 ms decrease in the magnitude of the flanker effect is small, but statistically significant.
Block x Trial Type interaction
F(1, 222) = 24.03, p < .001
The increases in the magnitude of the flanker effect are significant:
Block 1 to 2, F(1, 222) = 24.03, p < .001
Block 2 to 3, F(1,222) = 6.14, p = .014
Session x Trial Type Interaction
F(19, 133) = 4.92, p < .001
Congruency and Flanker Effect Over 100 Sessions
Flanker Effect: Moderate Test-Retest Reliability
and Questionable Convergent Validity
Orienting Effects Alerting Effects
Low reliability is associated with lower levels of replicability (e.g.,
LeBell
&
Paunonen
, 2011)
Low convergent validity implies that the magnitude of the flanker effect is determined by task specific strategies and mechanisms rather than a general inhibitory-control ability.
Note that Salthouse reported no correlation between an arrow and letter version of the flanker task!
If incongruent trials require an additional inhibitory control process not required on congruent trials, then their very high correlation (r = .924) is surprising.
High correlations are associated with unreliable difference scores (Salthouse &
Hedden
, 2002) because no unique process is isolated.
Congruent and Incongruent RTs are Highly Related