Selective Suppression of Taboo Information in Visual Word Recognition: Evidence for Cognitive Control on Semantics

• Main Authors: Job, R. (Author), Scaltritti, M. (Author), Sulpizio, S. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Psychological Association 2021
• Subjects: attention; Attention; cognition; Cognition; Cognitive control; human; Humans; Lexical decision; reaction time; Reaction Time; semantics; Semantics; taboo; Taboo; Taboo words; Visual word recognition
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 The present study investigated the role of cognitive control on semantic information during visual word recognition by exploiting taboo stimuli in a lexical-decision task. We relied on delta plots and electromyography (EMG) to assess different hypothetical mechanisms of cognitive control. Previous research suggests that taboo stimuli slow down the performance across a variety of tasks due to their attentiongrabbing nature. One possibility is that cognitive control counteracts the detrimental effects of taboo connotation by actively dampening such prepotent yet task-irrelevant information. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found a reversal of taboo interference effect in slowest responses, signaling the deployment of a selective suppression mechanism that needs time to fully accrue. For electromyographic data, we focused on partial errors (trials showing a subthreshold activation of the incorrect response hand) to index response-monitoring processes intervening to prevent and correct errors. We found no modulation of the likelihood of partial errors and, more generally, of response accuracy as a function of taboo connotation. Taken together, the results suggest that cognitive control may intervene to selectively suppress fast-acting and distracting taboo information, indicating a controlled semantic processing that optimizes activation to match task-relevant goals. © 2021 American Psychological Association