Abstract: PURPOSE: Conflict adaptation effects refer to the reduction of interference effects in conflict tasks after a previous incongruent trial, compared with a previous congruent trial. The effects have been considered to reflect the adaptive cognitive control mechanisms. However, whether the generalization of the effects between different conditions depends on the similarity of task sets or conflict types is still under debate.
METHODS: Two very different tasks are tested and alternated between consecutive trials. One is the Flanker task, which induces congruency sequence effects (CSE), and one is the spatial cueing task, which induces validity sequence effects (VSE). Apparently, the two tasks have very distinct conflict types. If the similarity of conflict types is the decisive factor, there should be no sequence effects between the two tasks. The task sets are also manipulated, the target stimuli are similar for the two tasks in Experiment 1, but not similar in Experiment 2. If the similarity of task sets is the decisive factor, there should be sequence effects between the two tasks only when the target stimuli are similar.
RESULTS: The domain-general cognitive control is only found from previous flanker trials to current cueing trials when the task sets of the two tasks are very similar in Experiment 1. In addition, the VSE between trial n-2 and trial n are eliminated by the existence of an intermediate flanker trial, but the CSE between trial n-2 and trial n is still significant even with an intermediate cueing trial.
CONCLUSIONS: Conflict adaptation effects can happen between very different tasks, ruling out the conflict types as the decisive factor for the generalization of the effects. As a comparison, the similarity of task sets decides whether the effects generalize between different tasks, indicating its significant influence on the generalization of conflict adaptation effects.

Key words: congruency adaptation effects, Flanker tasks, cueing tasks, domain-general