Multiple Partially Overlapping Neural Modules Orchestrate Conflict Processing

Abstract

Cognitive conflict is a ubiquitous aspect of our daily life, yet its underlying neural mechanisms remain debated. Competing theories propose that conflict processing is governed by either a domain-general system, multiple conflict-specific modules, or an architecture involving partially overlapping mechanisms. The aim of the current study was to clarify how these mechanisms operate at the neural level using a data-driven decoding approach. We analyzed electroencephalogram (EEG) data from 507 healthy participants (ages 20-70) from the Dortmund Vital Study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05155397) who completed three conflict tasks: a Change Detection task, a Simon task, and a Stroop task. Using multivariate decoding to distinguish conflict from non-conflict trials, we observed robust within-task decoding across all tasks. However, cross-task decoding revealed shared conflict representations only in specific task pairs. These findings support an account, in which conflict processing relies on partially overlapping neural mechanisms rather than being fully domain-general or entirely task specific. We argue that conflict-related neural processes might be best conceptualized as a continuum of overlap and differentiation, with domain-generality and domain-specificity representing the endpoints of this spectrum. Research Transparency StatementThe authors declare no conflicts of interest. Funding: This work was supported by the International Visiting Scholar Program at The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and Development of Western Sydney University (MS), and the Australian Research Council grants DE230100380 (TG) and DP220103047 (MV). Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence assisted technologies were utilized solely for language refinement and grammar corrections, ensuring clarity and readability without altering the original content or ideas. Ethics: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Ardeystra{beta}e 67 44139 Dortmund, Germany (IfADo; code A93-3) as detailed in the published study protocol (Gajewski et al., 2022). Preregistration: The current study was not preregistered. However, the dataset used in this manuscript originates from the Dortmund Vital Study, which is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05155397). Data: A sample dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EDTNM Analysis Scripts: All analysis scripts are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EDTNM.