SynthesisPsychological research2025
Meta-analytic evidence for the complex mechanisms underlying congruency sequence effect.
Synthesis in Psychological research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Post-error slowing is modulated by emotional words.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Ten years Diffusion Model for Conflict (DMC) tasks: Theoretical foundations, applications, practical recommendations, and open challenges.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Conflict adaptation in a confound-minimized face-word Stroop task: exploring the potential settings of an fMRI-related experiment.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe congruency sequence effect (CSE) refers to a reduction in the congruency effect after incongruent trials compared to congruent trials in a conflict-inducing task. There is an ongoing debate about the mechanisms underlying the CSE.
methodsTo help inform this debate, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relevant CSE studies published in the past 31 years (from 1992 to 2023). By measuring the mean effect sizes from various tasks and procedures, we examined to what extent the CSE results from top-down or bottom-up mechanisms and to what extent these mechanisms are local to the tasks performed or global to the experiment.
resultsResults demonstrate that while the CSE was larger for studies that included bottom-up confounds (Hedges' g = 1.28), it was still robust and significant for studies that controlled for these confounds (Hedges' g = 0.95). Additionally, CSE was significant both within (Hedges' g = 1.54) and between tasks (Hedge's g = 0.27), but the effect was larger within a task. This suggests that the mechanisms driving the CSE affect both local and global control mechanisms. Furthermore, the current meta-analysis suggests that the congruency effect and CSE may not result from the same control mechanisms. Lastly, given that bottom-up confounds are easily controlled for in the prime probe and temporal flanker tasks, which produced a large CSE (Hedges' g = 1.13), these may be useful procedures to use to address future questions for CSE.
conclusionOverall, the present meta-analysis provides converging evidence for conclusions from previous studies of the CSE and highlights the complex factors that produce this effect.
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