Supramodal executive control of attention: evidence from unimodal and crossmodal dual conflict effects

Abstract

Although we have demonstrated that the executive control of attention acts supramodally as shown by significant correlation between conflict effects measures in visual and auditory tasks, no direct evidence of the equivalence in the computational mechanisms governing the allocation of executive control resources within and across modalities has been found. Here, in two independent groups of 40 participants, we examined the interaction effects of conflict processing in both unimodal (visual) and crossmodal (visual and auditory) dual-conflict paradigms (flanker conflict processing in Task 1 and then in the following Task 2) with a manipulation of the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In both the unimodal and the crossmodal dual-conflict paradigms, the conflict processing of Task 1 interfered with the conflict processing of Task 2 when the SOA was short, reflecting an additive interference effect of Task 1 on Task 2 under the time constraints. These results suggest that there is a unified entity that oversees conflict processing acting supramodally by implementing comparable mechanisms in unimodal and crossmodal scenarios.