page_title: Eriksen flanker task
section_title: Neurological basis
hierarchical_section_title: Eriksen flanker task / Neurological basis
caption_attribution_description: English: Sagittal MRI slice with highlighting indicating location of the anterior cingulate cortex.
context_page_description: In cognitive psychology, the Eriksen flanker task is a set of response inhibition tests used to assess the ability to suppress responses that are inappropriate in a particular context. The target is flanked by non-target stimuli which correspond either to the same directional response as the target, to the opposite response, or to neither. The task is named for American psychologists Barbara. A. Eriksen & Charles W. Eriksen, who first published the task in 1974, and for the flanker stimuli that surround the target. In the tests, a directional response is assigned to a central target stimulus. Various forms of the task are used to measure information processing and selective attention.
context_section_description: When subjects participate in the Eriksen Flanker Task, the anterior cingulate cortex, or the ACC, is activated. The ACC is a frontal brain structure responsible for a wide variety of autonomic functions. It is observed to be more active in response to processing incongruent stimuli than congruent stimuli. It is believed that the ACC may monitor the amount of conflict in an Eriksen Flanker trial. Then, that measured conflict is used to enhance the amount of control the participant has on the next trial. Thus indicating that the more conflict presented on trial n, the more control expressed on trial n + 1.
  This process leads to an interaction called the Gratton effect, which is the finding of a lower interference effect after an incongruent trial compared to the effect after a congruent trial. On this first trial (trial n) the incongruent stimulus presented will lead to an increase in conflict detected by the ACC. On trial n + 1, the increased conflict will lead to more control, causing the distracting, or flanker, stimuli to be more readily ignored.
caption: The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) is highlighted in yellow
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