Circadian modulation of the time course of automatic and controlled semantic processing

ABSTRACT

We investigated whether chronotype and time-of-day modulate the time course of automatic and controlled semantic processing. Participants performed a category semantic priming task at either the optimal or non-optimal time of day. We varied the prime-target onset asynchrony (100-, 450-, 650-, and 850-ms SOAs) and kept the percentage of unrelated targets constant at 80%. Automatic processing was expected with the short SOA, and controlled processing with longer SOAs. Intermediate-types (Experiment 1) verified that our task was sensitive to capturing both types of processes and served as a reference to assess themin extreme chronotypes. Morning-type and evening-type participants (Experiment 2) differed in the influence of time of testing on priming effects. Morning-types applied control in all conditions, and no performance modulation by time-of-day was observed. In contrast, evening-types were most adversely affected by the time of day to shift from automatic-based to controlled-based responses. Also, they were considerably affected in successfully implementing controlled processing with long intervals, particularly at the non-optimal time of day, with inhibitory priming showing only a marginally significant effect at the longest SOA. These results suggest that extreme chronotypes may be associated with different styles of cognitive control. Morning-types would be driven by a proactive control style, whereas a reactive control style might be applied by evening-types.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronotype
• automatic processing
• controlled processing
• category semantic priming task
• facilitatory priming
• inhibitory priming

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

LBP: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Software, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Visualization MT: Methodology, Investigation, VMP: Methodology, Investigation ASL: Methodology, Investigation GC: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Supervision LJF: Conceptualization, Writing-Original draft preparation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, Visualization, Funding acquisition. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability statement

The dataset generated and analyzed during the current study as well as the R scripts used to preprocess the data are available in OSF repository (peer-review link): https://osf.io/kjhna/?view_only=16bc0c55949d4fa5ad800c60e0a692ec.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their participation. Data obtained from participants have been fully anonymized under their acknowledgment. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Murcia and was carried out in accordance with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2024.2312806.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grant [PID2021-125408NB-I00] funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”, and by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (predoctoral grants: [FPU17/00427], [FPU18/00288], and [FPU19/06017]).