Optimizing Insights into Cognitive Control Abilities through the Lens of Stroop Interference: Behavioral, Electrophysiological and fMRI Investigations of its Distinct Components. – OptiCog

Because cognitive control abilities greatly predict successful cognitive functioning and quality of life across the lifespan, their deeper understanding and optimization are of paramount importance. A major scientific barrier to these desirable end-states is that the most commonly used indicator of cognitive control, Stroop interference, remains itself poorly understood. This grant proposal is thus aimed at lifting this major scientific barrier by providing a) insights into the kind of components that Stroop interference actually involves (and therefore the specific processes that the measure of each of these component tackles); b) insights into the permeability of these components to different forms of cognitive control; c) a sensitive measurement tool of these components in clinical settings.
The well-established consortium (in term of expertise, resources and research output) will achieve these distinct goals in 42 months thanks to the solicited institutional funding of 237k€. To this end, the consortium will conduct an important series of experimental studies – using chronometric, electrophysiological and fMRI indicators. These studies will generate novel and sometimes counter-intuitive theoretical and empirical insights to the aforementioned cognitive control abilities. Therefore, they will make a great addition to programs of international conferences (deliverable 1) and will be published in top-ranked journals (deliverable 2).
The consortium also commits itself to sharing these insights with a broader audience (via specialized conferences and press, deliverable 3), including working policymakers. Indeed, an ANR-signed report summarizing implications of the scientific advances for public interventions and policies will be delivered (deliverable 4). Also, and still in line with the national endeavor aimed at solidifying the theoretical basis of public practices, interventions and policies (see e.g., Scientific Committee of Éducation nationale), the so-called Semantic Stroop Victoria test – resulting from the consortium’s studies – will be delivered (deliverable 5). It will allow both public and private practitioners to assess – in their clinical (i.e., field) practice – cognitive control abilities more sensitively and without any additional work load compared to the currently available and used Stroop tests. Therefore, during dedicated training sessions (deliverable 6), these practitioners will be given opportunity to get acquainted with the use and scoring of this ANR-signed open access tool (deliverable 7) that might be subject to a patent deposit. To sum up, in line with focal point of CE28 of ANR, the different deliverables and ensuing social and institutional benefits of OptiCog will contribute to shedding positive light on the role of fundamental and applied research in the deeper understanding of cognition and of its changes across the lifespan.