Disentangling posterror and postconflict reduction of interference

Conflict monitoring theory (CMT; Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen Psychological Review, 108, 624–652, 2001) states that response conflict, the simultaneous activation of two competing responses, increases task focus and reduces interference from irrelevant information. CMT also defines errors as conflict, and reduced interference effects have consistently been reported following errors (Ridderinkhof Psychological Research, 66, 312–323, 2002). However, previous computations of this posterror reduction of interference (PERI) have overlooked the congruency of the previous trial. This is problematic, because most errors are made on incongruent trials, creating a confound between (previous) accuracy and (previous) congruency. Therefore, it is likely that reduced interference following errors is in fact the congruency sequence effect (i.e., reduced interference following incongruent, relative to congruent, trials). Our results corroborate this idea by demonstrating that participants indeed showed significant PERI following a congruent trial, but inverse PERI following an incongruent trial. These findings are discussed in light of the adaptation-by-binding account (Verguts & Notebaert Psychological Review, 115, 518–525, 2008, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 252–257, 2009).