Learning of irrelevant stimulus-response associations modulates cognitive control

It has been shown that manipulating the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials in conflict tasks (e.g., Stroop, Simon, and flanker tasks) can vary the size of conflict effects, however, by two different mechanisms. One theory is the control learning account (the brain learns the probability of conflict and uses it to proactively adjust the control demand for future trials). The other is the irrelevant stimulus-response learning account (the brain learns the probability of irrelevant stimulus-response associations and uses it to prepare responses). Previous fMRI studies have detected the brain regions that contribute to the control-learning-modulated conflict effects, but it is less known what neural substrates underlie the conflict effects modulated by irrelevant S-R learning. We here investigated this question with a model-based fMRI study, in which the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials changed dynamically in the Simon task and the models learned the probability of irrelevant S-R associations quantitatively. Behavioral analyses showed that the unsigned prediction errors (PEs) of responses generated by the learning models correlated with reaction times irrespective of congruent and incongruent trials, indicating that large unsigned PEs associated with slow responses. The fMRI results showed that the regions of fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular network involved in cognitive control were significantly modulated by the unsigned PEs, also irrespective of congruent and incongruent trials, indicating that large unsigned PEs associated with transiently increased activity in these regions. These results together suggest that learning of irrelevant S-R associations modulates reactive control, which demonstrates a new way to modulate cognitive control compared to the control learning account.