ERP correlates of a flanker task with varying levels of analytic-holistic cognitive style

This study aimed to determine whether individual differences in analytic-holistic cognitive style are associated with flanker task performance and, furthermore, to pinpoint at what stage(s) of information processing this association occurs, as indexed by event-related potential (ERP) components. The first experiment demonstrated that age-related differences in flanker cost were associated with the analytic-holistic cognitive style, as measured by the Analysis-Holism Scale (AHS). The second experiment used concurrent electroencephalographic recordings to identify significant correlations between AHS scores and ERP components, including N1 amplitude, P3 latency, stimulus-locked lateralized readiness potential (LRP) amplitude, and response-locked LRP amplitude. These results suggest that individuals with more holistic cognitive styles have wider attentional windows, which might explain the general behavioral effect on flanker task performance. Furthermore, these individuals also exhibited greater flanker interference at the specific processing stages of stimulus evaluation, response selection, and motor preparation, as evidenced by ERPs. This is one of the few studies to investigate the relationship between the analytic-holistic cognitive style and flanker task performance using the ERP approach. The results provide neural correlates regarding how individual differences in analytic-holistic cognitive style might be associated with information processing.