Between-task transfer of item-specific control is replicable and extends to novel conditions.

Learning-guided control refers to adjustments of cognitive control settings based on learned associations between predictive cues and the likelihood of conflict. In three preregistered experiments, we examined transfer of item-specific control settings beyond conditions under which they were learned. In Experiment 1, an item-specific proportion congruence (ISPC) manipulation was applied in a training phase in which target color in a Flanker task was biased (mostly congruent or mostly incongruent). In a subsequent transfer phase, participants performed a color-word Stroop task in which the same target colors were unbiased (50% congruent). The same design was implemented in Experiment 2, but training and transfer tasks were intermixed within blocks. Between-task transfer was evidenced in both experiments, suggesting learned control settings associated with the predictive cues were retrieved when encountering unbiased transfer items. In Experiment 3, we investigated a farther version of between-task transfer by using training (color-word Stroop) and transfer (picture-word Stroop) tasks that did not share the relevant (to-be-named) dimension or response sets. Despite the stronger, between-task boundary, we observed an ISPC effect for the transfer items, but it did not emerge until the second half of the experiment. The results provided converging evidence for the flexibility and automaticity of item-specific control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Humans do not avoid reactively implementing cognitive control.

The ability to exert cognitive control allows us to achieve goals in the face of distraction and competing actions. However, control is costly-people generally aim to minimize its demands. Because control takes many forms, it is important to understand whether such costs apply universally. Specifically, reactive control, which is recruited in response to stimulus or contextual features, is theorized to be deployed automatically, and not depend on attentional resources. Here, we investigated whether people avoided implementing reactive control in three experiments. In all, participants performed a Stroop task in which certain items were mostly incongruent (MI), that is, associated with a high likelihood of conflict (triggering a focused control setting). Other items were mostly congruent, that is, associated with a low likelihood of conflict (triggering a relaxed control setting). Experiment 1 demonstrated that these control settings transfer to a subsequent unbiased transfer phase. In Experiments 2-3, we used a demand selection task to investigate whether people would avoid choice options that yielded items that were previously MI. In all, participants continued to retrieve focused control settings for previously MI items, but they did not avoid them in the demand selection task. Critically, we only found demand avoidance when there was an objective difference in demand between options. These findings are consistent with the idea that implementing reactive control does not register as costly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

On the psychometric evaluation of cognitive control tasks: An Investigation with the Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMCC) battery.

The domain of cognitive control has been a major focus of experimental, neuroscience, and individual differences research. Currently, however, no theory of cognitive control successfully unifies both experimental and individual differences findings. Some perspectives deny that there even exists a unified psychometric cognitive control construct to be measured at all. These shortcomings of the current literature may reflect the fact that current cognitive control paradigms are optimized for the detection of within-subject experimental effects rather than individual differences. In the current study, we examine the psychometric properties of the Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMCC) task battery, which was designed in accordance with a theoretical framework that postulates common sources of within-subject and individual differences variation. We evaluated both internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and for the latter, utilized both classical test theory measures (i.e., split-half methods, intraclass correlation) and newer hierarchical Bayesian estimation of generative models. Although traditional psychometric measures suggested poor reliability, the hierarchical Bayesian models indicated a different pattern, with good to excellent test-retest reliability in almost all tasks and conditions examined. Moreover, within-task, between-condition correlations were generally increased when using the Bayesian model-derived estimates, and these higher correlations appeared to be directly linked to the higher reliability of the measures. In contrast, between-task correlations remained low regardless of theoretical manipulations or estimation approach. Together, these findings highlight the advantages of Bayesian estimation methods, while also pointing to the important role of reliability in the search for a unified theory of cognitive control.

Sequence effects and speech processing: cognitive load for speaker-switching within and across accents.

Prior work in speech processing indicates that listening tasks with multiple speakers (as opposed to a single speaker) result in slower and less accurate processing. Notably, the trial-to-trial cognitive demands of switching between speakers or switching between accents have yet to be examined. We used pupillometry, a physiological index of cognitive load, to examine the demands of processing first (L1) and second (L2) language-accented speech when listening to sentences produced by the same speaker consecutively (no switch), a novel speaker of the same accent (within-accent switch), and a novel speaker with a different accent (across-accent switch). Inspired by research on sequential adjustments in cognitive control, we aimed to identify the cognitive demands of accommodating a novel speaker and accent by examining the trial-to-trial changes in pupil dilation during speech processing. Our results indicate that switching between speakers was more cognitively demanding than listening to the same speaker consecutively. Additionally, switching to a novel speaker with a different accent was more cognitively demanding than switching between speakers of the same accent. However, there was an asymmetry for across-accent switches, such that switching from an L1 to an L2 accent was more demanding than vice versa. Findings from the present study align with work examining multi-talker processing costs, and provide novel evidence that listeners dynamically adjust cognitive processing to accommodate speaker and accent variability. We discuss these novel findings in the context of an active control model and auditory streaming framework of speech processing.

Age-Related Differences in Mind Wandering: The Role of Emotional Valence.

OBJECTIVES: Older adults consistently report fewer experiences of mind wandering compared to younger adults. Aging is also associated with a shift in the emotional focus of our thoughts, with older adults tending to experience an increase in attention toward positive information, or a "positivity bias," relative to younger adults. Here, we tested if the positivity bias associated with aging can also predict age-related changes in the content of older adults' mind wandering. METHOD: Older adults and younger adults completed a go/no-go task with periodic thought probes to assess rates of emotionally valenced mind wandering. RESULTS: Older adults reported significantly less negatively and neutrally valenced mind wandering compared to younger adults, but there was no age difference in reports of positively valenced mind wandering. Overall rates of mind wandering predicted poorer task performance for both age groups: Individuals who mind wandered more, performed worse, but this did not differ by the emotional valence. Both older adults and younger adults showed similar in-the-moment performance deficits, with mind wandering reports being associated with worse immediate no-go accuracy and faster reaction times, consistent with mindless responding. DISCUSSION: Focusing on different dimensions of thought content, such as emotional valence, can provide new insight into age-related differences in mind wandering. Older adults' mind wandering reports were less negative and neutral compared to younger adults' reports suggesting a positivity bias for older adults. However, this positivity bias does not seem to affect task performance. We discuss the implications of the findings for mind wandering theories and the positivity bias.

Revealing object-based cognitive control in a moving object paradigm.

Object-based attention and flexible adjustments of cognitive control based on contextual cues signaling the likelihood of distraction are well documented. However, no prior research has conclusively demonstrated that people flexibly adjust cognitive control to minimize distraction based on learned associations between task-irrelevant objects and distraction likelihood (i.e., object-based cognitive control). To fill this gap, we developed a novel paradigm during which participants responded to flanker stimuli appearing in one of multiple locations on two simultaneously presented objects. One object predicted a low likelihood of encountering an incongruent flanker stimulus and the other a high likelihood. After each response, the objects rotated clockwise such that all locations on average were 50% congruent, thereby eliminating confounds between location and likelihood of incongruence. Object-based cognitive control was evidenced by reduced flanker compatibility effects in the high compared to low conflict object. Across four experiments, we demonstrated that object-based cognitive control was dependent on a strong manipulation of the likelihood of conflict between objects and movement of the objects between trials. The novel evidence for object-based cognitive control is important in showing that people exploit not only location as a cue to guide control, but additionally objects, mirroring evidence on object and location-based attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Dissociating proactive and reactive control in older adults.

The Dual Mechanisms of Control framework predicts that age-related declines should be most prominent for tasks that require proactive control, while tasks requiring reactive control should show minimal age differences in performance. However, results from traditional paradigms are inconclusive as to whether these two processes are independent, making it difficult to understand how these processes change with age. The present study manipulated the proportion congruency in a list-wide (Experiments 1 and 2) or item-specific (Experiment 1) fashion to independently assess proactive and reactive control, respectively. In the list-wide task, older adults were unable to proactively bias attention away from word processing based on list-level expectancies. Proactive control deficits replicated across multiple task paradigms, with different Stroop stimuli (picture-word, integrated color-word, separated color-word), and different behavioral indices (Stroop interference, secondary prospective memory). In contrast, older adults were successfully able to reactively filter the word dimension based on item-specific expectancies. These findings provide unambiguous support that aging is associated with declines in proactive, but not reactive, control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The location-specific proportion congruence effect: Are left/right locations special?

People reactively adjust attentional control based on the history of conflict experiences at different locations resulting in location-specific proportion compatibility (LSPC) effects. Weidler et al. (2022, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 48[4], 312-330) found that LSPC effects were larger when stimuli were presented on the horizontal axis (i.e., locations to left and right of fixation) compared with the vertical axis (i.e., locations above and below fixation). They proposed and provided initial evidence suggesting left/right locations may represent a special design feature that leads to stronger LSPC effects (i.e., horizontal precedence account). However, their use of horizontally oriented flanker stimuli, which required participants to traverse through the distracting flankers to select the central target selectively in the horizontal axis condition, may have contributed to the horizontal advantage they observed (i.e., gaze path account). The present study tested competing predictions of these two accounts. Experiment 1 used vertically oriented flanker stimuli and compared the findings with Weidler et al. The LSPC effect was larger for vertically oriented stimuli on the vertical axis, and horizontally oriented stimuli on the horizontal axis, supporting the gaze path account. Experiment 2 used flanker stimuli that required participants to traverse through distracting flankers regardless of the axis on which stimuli were presented. The LSPC effect was equivalent between the vertical axis and horizontal axis conditions. These results further supported the gaze path account and suggest that the critical design feature for amplifying LSPC effects is not left/right locations per se, but rather use of stimuli/axis combinations that encourage processing of the distractor dimension.

The Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMCC) project: Validation of an online behavioural task battery.

Cognitive control serves a crucial role in human higher mental functions. The Dual Mechanisms of Control theoretical framework provides a unifying account that decomposes cognitive control into two qualitatively distinct mechanisms-proactive control and reactive control. Here, we describe the Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMCC) task battery, which was developed to probe cognitive control modes in a theoretically targeted manner, along with detailed descriptions of the experimental manipulations used to encourage shifts to proactive or reactive mode in each of four prototypical domains of cognition: selective attention, context processing, multitasking, and working memory. We present results from this task battery, conducted from a large (N > 100), online sample that rigorously evaluates the group effects of these manipulations in primary indices of proactive and reactive control, establishing the validity of the battery in providing dissociable yet convergent measures of the two cognitive control modes. The DMCC battery may be a useful tool for the research community to examine cognitive control in a theoretically targeted manner across different individuals and groups.

Transfer of learned cognitive control settings within and between tasks.

Cognitive control is modulated based on learned associations between conflict probability and stimulus features such as color. We investigated whether such learning-guided control transfers to novel stimuli and/or a novel task. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants experienced an item-specific proportion congruence (ISPC) manipulation in a Stroop (Experiment 1) or Flanker (Experiment 2) task with mostly congruent (MC) and mostly incongruent (MI) colors in training blocks. During a transfer block, participants performed the same task and encountered novel transfer stimuli paired with MC or MI colors. Evidencing within-task transfer, in both experiments, responses were faster to incongruent transfer stimuli comprising an MI color compared with an MC color. In Experiment 3, we investigated between-task transfer from Stroop to Flanker. After training with an ISPC manipulation in the Stroop task, a Flanker task was completed with the same colors but without an ISPC manipulation (i.e., 50% congruent). Responses were faster to incongruent transfer stimuli paired with the previously-MI colors compared with the previously-MC colors. Additionally, transfer was evident in the first half of the Flanker task but not the second half. The evidence for within-task transfer, in combination with the novel evidence for between-task transfer, suggests learned control settings are flexibly retrieved and executed when predictive cues signaling these control settings are encountered in novel stimuli or a novel task. Theoretical implications are discussed alongside potential neural mechanisms mediating transfer of learning-guided control.

When global and local information about attentional demands collide: evidence for global dominance.

This study investigated how global and local information about attentional demands influence attentional control, with a special interest in whether one information source dominates when they conflict. In Experiment 1, we manipulated proportion congruence in two blocks (i.e., mostly congruent versus mostly incongruent) of a Stroop task to create different global demands (i.e., low versus high, respectively). Additionally, we created different local demands by embedding 10-trial lists in each block that varied in their proportion congruence (10% to 90% congruent), and half the lists were preceded by a valid precue explicitly informing participants of upcoming attentional demands. Stroop effects were smaller in mostly incongruent compared with mostly congruent blocks demonstrating the influence of global information. Stroop effects also varied according to the proportion congruence of the abbreviated lists and differed between cued and uncued lists (i.e., cueing effect), demonstrating the influence of local information. Critically, we found that global and local information interacted, such that the cueing effect differed between the two blocks. While there was evidence that participants used the precue to relax control for mostly congruent lists within the mostly congruent block, the cueing effect was absent within the mostly incongruent block. In Experiment 2, we replicated the latter pattern and thereby provided further evidence that participants do not use local precues to relax control when attentional demands are globally high. The findings suggest that both global and local information sources influence the control of attention, and global information dominates local expectations when the information sources collide.

A multimodal analysis of sustained attention in younger and older adults.

Age-related cognitive decline has been attributed to processing speed differences, as well as differences in executive control and response inhibition. However, recent research has shown that healthy older adults have intact, if not superior, sustained attention abilities compared to younger adults. The present study used a combination of reaction time (RT), thought probes, and pupillometry to measure sustained attention in samples of younger and older adults. The RT data revealed that, while slightly slower overall, older adults sustained their attention to the task better than younger adults, and did not show a vigilance decrement. Older adults also reported fewer instances of task-unrelated thoughts and reported feeling more motivated and alert than younger adults, despite finding the task more demanding. Additionally, older adults showed larger, albeit later-peaking, task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs), corroborating the behavioral and self-report data. Finally, older adults did not show a shallowing of TEPRs across time, corroborating the finding that their RTs also did not change across time. The present findings are interpreted in light of processing speed theory, resource-depletion theories of vigilance, and recent neurological theories of cognitive aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

How is location defined? Implications for learning and transfer of location-specific control.

Much research has explored location-specific proportion compatibility (LSPC) effects (i.e., how the appearance of a stimulus in certain locations can reactively trigger different attentional control settings) to elucidate mechanisms underlying reactive control. Recently, however, failures to reproduce key evidence showing transfer of LSPC effects (originally reported in Crump & Milliken, 2009) have called into question whether control per se supports these effects. Notably, Crump and Milliken (2009), and all studies attempting to reproduce their findings, presented stimuli in two locations, one above and one below fixation. Inspired by research on differences between horizontal and vertical meridians, we examined the consequences of defining location in this way compared with alternatives. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that LSPC effects are robust when location is defined as left versus right and larger than when location is defined as upper versus lower, and additionally demonstrated LSPC effects for two locations within the same coarse spatial category (e.g., left vs. farther left). In Experiment 3, we aimed to reproduce Crump and Milliken's key findings using left and right locations for the first time. Critically, we found transfer of the LSPC effect to diagnostic items across two designs and the first evidence for a robust experiment wide LSPC effect for inducer items. Our findings support theories positing that LSPC effects reflect location-specific attentional control and more generally suggest that choosing a definition of location is not a minor methodological decision but critically impacts learning and transfer of location-specific attentional control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The dominance of item learning in the location-specific proportion congruence paradigm.

Prior research has shown that various cues are exploited to reactively adjust attention, and such adjustments depend on learning associations between cues and proportion congruence. This raises the intriguing question of what will be learned when more than one cue is available, a question that has implications for understanding which cue(s) will dominate in guiding reactive adjustments. Evidence from a picture-word Stroop task demonstrated that item learning dominated over location learning in a location-specific proportion congruence (LSPC) paradigm, a pattern that may explain the difficulty researchers have faced in replicating and reproducing the LSPC effect. One goal was to reproduce this pattern using a non-overlapping two-item set design that more closely matched prior studies, and another goal was to examine generalisability of the pattern to two other tasks. Using a prime-probe, colour-word Stroop task (Experiment 1), and a flanker task (Experiment 2), we again found clear dominance of item learning. In Experiment 3, we attempted to disrupt item learning and promote location learning by using a counting procedure that directed participants' attention to location. Once again, we found the same pattern of item dominance. In addition, in none of the experiments did we find evidence for conjunctive (location-item) learning. Collectively, the findings suggest item learning is neither design- or task-specific; rather, it is robust, reliable, and not easily disrupted. Discussion centres on factors dictating dominance of item- over location-based adjustments and implications for the broader literature on LSPC effects.

Meaningful boundaries create boundary conditions for control.

Recent research demonstrated that control states learned via experience in inducer locations were retrieved in novel, unbiased (i.e., diagnostic) locations positioned nearby. Such transfer has been observed even in the presence of a visual boundary (a line) separating inducer and diagnostic locations. One aim of the present study was to assess whether a meaningful boundary might disrupt retrieval of control states in diagnostic locations. Supporting this possibility, in Experiment 1 learned control states did not transfer from inducer locations superimposed on a university's quad to diagnostic locations superimposed on buildings outside the quad. Similarly, in Experiment 2 transfer was not observed for diagnostic locations positioned on a track outside of the field where inducer locations were positioned; however, transfer was also not observed for diagnostic locations on the field (inside the boundary). The latter finding helped motivate Experiments 3a and 3b, which tackled the second aim by examining whether a meaningful boundary might attenuate learning of control states for inducer locations within the boundary. Consistent with this hypothesis, a CSPC effect was observed only when a meaningful boundary was not present. Taken together, the findings provide evidence that meaningful boundaries influence how conflict experiences are organized during a task thereby impacting learning and transfer of context-specific control states.

The effect of context on mind-wandering in younger and older adults.

Older adults report less mind-wandering (MW) during tasks of sustained attention than younger adults. The control failure × current concerns account argues that this is due to age differences in how contexts cue personally relevant task-unrelated thoughts. For older adults, the university laboratory contains few reminders of their current concerns and unfinished goals. For younger adults, however, the university laboratory is more directly tied to their current concerns. Therefore, if the context for triggering current concerns is the critical difference between younger and older adults' reported MW frequencies, then testing the two groups in contexts that equate the salience of self-relevant cues (i.e., their homes) should result in an increase in older but not younger adults' MW rates. The present study directly compared rates of MW and involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) in the home versus in the lab for younger and older adults using a within-subjects manipulation of context. Inconsistent with the control failure × current concerns account, no significant reduction in the age-gap in MW was found. Suggesting a lack of cues rather than an abundance of cues elicits MW, participants in both age groups reported more MW in the lab than at home. The number of IAMs recalled did not differ across contexts but was lower in older than younger adults. These findings suggest that a cognitive rather than an environmental mechanism may be behind the reduction in spontaneous cognition in aging.

The shaping of cognitive control based on the adaptive weighting of expectations and experience.

Existing approaches in the literature on cognitive control in conflict tasks almost exclusively target the outcome of control (by comparing mean congruency effects) and not the processes that shape control. These approaches are limited in addressing a current theoretical issue-what contribution does learning make to adjustments in cognitive control? In the present study, we evaluated an alternative approach by reanalyzing existing data sets using generalized linear mixed models that enabled us to examine trial-level changes in control within abbreviated lists that varied in theoretically significant ways (e.g., probability of conflict; presence vs. absence of a precue). For the first time, this allowed us to characterize (a) the trial-by-trial signature of experience-based processes that support control as a list unfolds under various conditions and (b) how explicit precues conveying the expected probability of conflict within a list influence control learning. This approach uncovered novel theoretical insights: First, slopes representing control learning varied depending on whether a cue was available or not suggesting that explicit expectations about conflict affected whether and the rate at which control learning occurred; and second, this pattern was modulated by task demands and incentives. Additionally, analyses revealed a cue-induced heightening of control in high conflict likelihood lists that mean level analyses had failed to capture. The present study showed how control is shaped by the adaptive weighting of experience and expectations on a trial-by-trial basis and demonstrated the utility of a novel method for revealing the contributions of learning to control, and modulation of learning via precues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

On the automaticity of reactive item-specific control as evidenced by its efficiency under load.

Traditionally cognitive control is described as slow-acting, effortful, and strategic. Against this backdrop, the notion of "automatic control" is an oxymoron. However, recent findings indicate control also operates quickly with adjustments occurring outside awareness, leaving open the possibility that control could be automatic under certain conditions. Harnessing one such finding, the item-specific proportion congruent (ISPC) effect (i.e., reduction in congruency effect for mostly incongruent compared with mostly congruent items), we systematically investigated the automaticity of reactive item-specific control by examining its efficiency under a concurrent load. In four experiments using a picture-word Stroop task, participants first performed a block of trials in which an ISPC manipulation was embedded to acquire the item-control associations. In later blocks, we manipulated working memory load within-subjects (verbal in Experiment 1, visuospatial in Experiment 2, and n-back updating in Experiments 3 and 4) and compared the ISPC effect between low- and high-load conditions. The results of all four experiments showed that the ISPC effect was robust regardless of working memory load. In Experiment 4, we additionally included diagnostic items to assess whether transfer of item-specific control settings was also automatic. The ISPC transfer effect was abolished under high working memory load. Collectively, the findings suggest that reactive item-specific control is triggered and executed in an automatic manner (regardless of the available attentional resources), but only for items that directly support learning of the item-control associations that underlie item-specific control. We propose several hypotheses to account for these findings and discuss theoretical implications for control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A Representational Similarity Analysis of Cognitive Control during Color-Word Stroop.

Progress in understanding the neural bases of cognitive control has been supported by the paradigmatic color-word Stroop task, in which a target response (color name) must be selected over a more automatic, yet potentially incongruent, distractor response (word). For this paradigm, models have postulated complementary coding schemes: dorsomedial frontal cortex (DMFC) is proposed to evaluate the demand for control via incongruency-related coding, whereas dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) is proposed to implement control via goal and target-related coding. Yet, mapping these theorized schemes to measured neural activity within this task has been challenging. Here, we tested for these coding schemes relatively directly, by decomposing an event-related color-word Stroop task via representational similarity analysis. Three neural coding models were fit to the similarity structure of multivoxel patterns of human fMRI activity, acquired from 65 healthy, young-adult males and females. Incongruency coding was predominant in DMFC, whereas both target and incongruency coding were present with indistinguishable strength in DLPFC. In contrast, distractor information was strongly encoded within early visual cortex. Further, these coding schemes were differentially related to behavior: individuals with stronger DLPFC (and lateral posterior parietal cortex) target coding, but weaker DMFC incongruency coding, exhibited less behavioral Stroop interference. These results highlight the utility of the representational similarity analysis framework for investigating neural mechanisms of cognitive control and point to several promising directions to extend the Stroop paradigm.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT How the human brain enables cognitive control - the ability to override behavioral habits to pursue internal goals - has been a major focus of neuroscience research. This ability has been frequently investigated by using the Stroop color-word naming task. With the Stroop as a test-bed, many theories have proposed specific neuroanatomical dissociations, in which medial and lateral frontal brain regions underlie cognitive control by encoding distinct types of information. Yet providing a direct confirmation of these claims has been challenging. Here, we demonstrate that representational similarity analysis, which estimates and models the similarity structure of brain activity patterns, can successfully establish the hypothesized functional dissociations within the Stroop task. Representational similarity analysis may provide a useful approach for investigating cognitive control mechanisms.

The Timescale of Control: A Meta-Control Property that Generalizes across Tasks but Varies between Types of Control.

Prominent models of control assume that conflict and the probability of conflict are signals used by control processes that regulate attention. For example, when conflict is frequent across preceding trials (i.e., high probability of conflict), control processes bias attention toward goal-relevant information on subsequent trials. An important but underspecified question regards the meta-control property of timescale-that is, how far back does the control system "look" to determine the probability of conflict? To address this question, Aben, Verguts, and Van den Bussche (2017) developed a statistical model quantifying the timescale of control. In a flanker task, they observed short timescales for lists with a low probability of conflict (which induce reactive control) and long timescales for lists with a high probability of conflict (which induce proactive control). To investigate the domain generality of these timescales, we applied their model to two additional conflict tasks that manipulated the list-wide probability of conflict. Our findings replicated Aben et al. suggesting meta-control may be task general with respect to timescales operating on the list level. We subsequently modified their model to examine timescale differences for items in the same list that differed in their probability of conflict but not the type of control engaged. We failed to detect a difference in timescales between items. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that differences in the timescale of control are task general and suggest that timescale differences are driven by the type of control engaged and not by the probability of conflict per se.