Normal congruency sequence effects in psychopathology: A behavioral and electrophysiological examination using a confound‐minimized design

Abstract

Clinical studies of adaptive control emphasize the role disruptions in control play in psychopathology. However, many studies used confound‐laden designs and examined only one type of psychopathology. Recent studies of event‐related potentials (ERPs) suggest that robust congruency sequence effects (CSEs)—a popular index of adaptive control—appear in confound‐minimized designs. Thus, the present study sought to determine whether a confound‐minimized CSE paradigm could identify adaptive control dysfunction in people with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD). We predicted that participants with MDD and GAD would show smaller ERP CSEs and that participants with OCD would show larger ERP CSEs than healthy controls. Data from 44 people with GAD, 51 people with MDD, 31 people with OCD, and 56 healthy comparison participants revealed normal CSEs as indexed by response times (RTs) and ERPs in the psychopathology groups. Moreover, psychiatric symptoms did not moderate these CSEs. Finally, we observed a strong mean–variance relationship in RT CSEs, such that participants with stronger post‐recruitment of control in mean RT scores showed the most consistent post‐conflict responses (i.e., the least intraindividual variability). These findings suggest that prior findings from confound‐laden tasks indicating altered CSEs in psychopathology stem from processes that are unrelated to adaptive control. Future research should employ experimental designs that isolate these processes to advance our understanding of abnormal CSEs in psychopathology.

Abstract

This study investigates adaptive control dysfunction in people with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) and healthy comparison participants using a confound‐minimized congruency sequence effects (CSEs) paradigm. The present findings show normal CSEs across groups, suggesting that altered CSEs in psychopathology may stem from unrelated processes. The study emphasizes the need to use confound‐minimized CSE designs to isolate control‐related processes to understand abnormal CSEs in psychopathology.