The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Eriksen Flanker Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_eriksen_flanker

Family: Conflict and interference tasks

Also known as: Flanker, Flanker Task

A central target flanked by congruent or incongruent distractors; RT and error differences index selective attention and conflict resolution.

Description

The Eriksen Flanker Task measures selective attention and the ability to inhibit responses to irrelevant flanking stimuli. Participants view a brief display of five items arranged horizontally, with a central target flanked by two non-target items on each side. The central target requires a specific response, while flanking items may be congruent (same response), incongruent (opposite response), or neutral. Participants respond via speeded button press while ignoring flankers. The flanker compatibility effect (slowed RT and increased errors on incongruent trials) indexes the degree of response competition and the efficiency of attentional filtering.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

Participants identify a central target (arrow or letter) flanked by congruent, incongruent, or neutral distractors.

Manipulation

Flanker congruency; flanker-target distance; proportion congruent; response deadline.

Measurement

RT and accuracy; congruency effect (incongruent − congruent RT); delta plots (interference across RT distribution); conflict adaptation (Gratton effect).

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Arrow Flanker (Standard)

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__arrow_flanker_standard

Five horizontally arranged arrows; identify central arrow direction while ignoring flanking arrows.

Canonical flanker: central arrow surrounded by congruent/incongruent arrows

Letter Flanker

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__letter_flanker

Letters (e.g., ‘H’ among ‘S’ letters) rather than arrows; the original Eriksen format.

Letter stimuli instead of arrows; different S-R mapping and stimulus class

Color Flanker

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__color_flanker

Respond to central stimulus color while ignoring flanking colors.

Color response with flanking distractors; different response dimension

Emotional Flanker

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__emotional_flanker

Emotional faces or images as flankers creating affective interference.

Emotional face flankers; retained per §5.1 (EMOT retired)

Numerical Flanker

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__numerical_flanker

Digit stimuli where flanker magnitude creates conflict with target digit processing.

Number stimuli with magnitude response; different S-R domain

Proportion-Congruent Flanker

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__proportion_congruent_flanker

Varying ratio of congruent to incongruent trials; modulates strategic control engagement.

Varies ratio of congruent to incongruent trials; changes conflict adaptation context per §5.2

Combined Flanker + Go/No-Go

hedvar_eriksen_flanker__combined_flanker_go_no_go

Flanker conflict combined with response inhibition demands.

Integrated flanker-GNG design; targets response inhibition under conflict

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16(2), 143-149. (DOI)

  • Botvinick, M. M., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Carter, C. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Psychological Review, 108(3), 624-652. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Egner, T., & Hirsch, J. (2005). Cognitive control mechanisms resolve conflict through cortical amplification of task-relevant information. Nature Neuroscience, 8(12), 1784-1790. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • White, C. N., Servant, M., & Logan, G. D. (2018). Testing the validity of conflict drift-diffusion models for use in estimating cognitive processes: A parameter-recovery study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25(1), 323–330. (DOI)

  • Ulrich, R., Schröter, H., Leuthold, H., & Birngruber, D. (2015). Automatic and controlled stimulus processing in conflict tasks: Superimposed diffusion processes and delta functions. Cognitive Psychology, 78, 148–174. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Servant, M., & Logan, G. D. (2019). Dynamics of attentional focusing in the Eriksen flanker task. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81, 2710–2721. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Donner, T. H., Siegel, M., Fries, P., & Engel, A. K. (2009). Buildup of choice-predictive activity in human motor cortex during perceptual decision making. Current Biology, 19(18), 1581–1585. (DOI, PubMed)