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Intentional reconfiguration and involuntary persistence in task-set switching
Abstract
Switching between different tasks often increases response time compared to repeated performance of a task. This switch cost has been thought to reflect either an executive process of task set reconfiguration or proactive interference from competing task sets. This chapter tries to reconcile these views by showing that switch costs are influenced both by voluntary preparation and involuntary carry-over of inhibition and stimulus-response-bindings from the previous trial. Three experiments are reported in which participants switched between responding to the color and responding to the identity of letters. Switch costs were reduced when participants verbalized each task before the stimulus, compared to when they performed a verbal distractor task, suggesting that intention retrieval sup ported advance reconfiguration. Switch costs increased when the two stimulus dimensions activated incongruent responses and when task switches followed incongruent trials, indicating persisting activation of preceding task sets and persisting inhibition of irrelevant perceptual dimensions, S-R mappings, or both. Findings suggest that voluntary actions are not controlled by a unitary central executive, but emerge from the interaction of separable component processes, some maintaining intentions, others reconfiguring task sets. According to the proposed model, seemingly dysfunctional aspects of cognitive control are manifestations of adaptive mechanisms that have evolved to satisfy partially incompatible constraints on action control.
... Accounts that postulate task-switch specific preparatory processes are referred to as additional process accounts (De Jong 2000;Rogers and Monsell 1995;Rubinstein et al. 2001). Theories of task-set preparation include the reprogramming of the cognitive system (Ruthruff et al. 2001), top-down biasing of the relevant task-demand units (Gilbert and Shallice 2002), retrieving the new task set from longterm memory and loading it into working memory (Goschke 2000;Mayr and Kliegl 2000), or loading it into the region of direct access of procedural working memory (Risse and Oberauer 2010). These theories are supported by the finding that task-switch costs are considerably reduced when a valid task-cue is presented well before the stimulus (Meiran 1996). ...
... The exact nature of preparatory processes is unresolved, but could likely correspond with accounts on re-programming of the cognitive system (Ruthruff et al. 2001) or top-down biasing of the relevant task-demand units (Gilbert and Shallice 2002). The la er may be described as well as loading the task set into working memory (Goschke 2000;Mayr and Kliegl 2000) or loading it into the region of direct access (Risse and Oberauer 2010). ...
The task-switching paradigm is deemed a measure of cognitive flexibility. Previous research has demonstrated that individual differences in task-switch costs are moderately inversely related to cognitive ability. However, current theories emphasize multiple component processes of task switching, such as task-set preparation and task-set inertia. The relations of task-switching processes with cognitive ability were investigated in the current study. Participants completed a task-switching paradigm with geometric forms and a visuospatial working memory capacity (WMC) task. The task-switch effect was decomposed with the diffusion model. Effects of task-switching and response congruency were estimated as latent differences using structural equation modeling. Their magnitudes and relations with visuospatial WMC were investigated. Effects in the means of parameter estimates replicated previous findings, namely increased non-decision time in task-switch trials. Further, task switches and response incongruency had independent effects on drift rates, reflecting their differential effects on task readiness. Findings obtained with the figural tasks employed in this study revealed that WMC was inversely related to the task-switch effect in non-decision time. Relations with drift rates were inconsistent. Finally, WMC was moderately inversely related to response caution. These findings suggest that more able participants either needed less time for task-set preparation or that they invested less time for task-set preparation.
... For instance, some situations require or call for a persistent, focused control style-like when facing distracting but irrelevant information, while others require or call for a more f lexible, open and associative control stylelike when acting under uncertainty. The fact that people can deal with both kinds of situations suggests that they can adjust their control style (to some degree) between extreme persistence and extreme f lexibility (Goschke 2000;Goschke and Bolte 2014;Hommel and Colzato 2017;Beste et al. 2018). A strong bias toward persistence is assumed to imply strong focus on the current goal and the processing of task-relevant information only, whereas a strong bias toward f lexibility should involve a broader focus and openness even to currently task-irrelevant information (Hommel 2015). ...
... This will considerably broaden the conceptual relevance of this aspect of neurophysiological activity. This possibility would also fit with considerations that situational noise (i.e. the presence of distracting information) may be an important parameter to adjust metacontrol biases toward more f lexibility or persistence (Goschke 2000;Goschke and Bolte 2014;Hommel and Colzato 2017). ...
Higher-level cognitive functions are mediated via complex oscillatory activity patterns and its analysis is dominating cognitive neuroscience research. However, besides oscillatory (period) activity, also aperiodic activity constitutes neural dynamics, but its relevance for higher-level cognitive functions is only beginning to be understood. The present study examined whether the broadband EEG aperiodic activity reflects principles of metacontrol. Metacontrol conceptualizes whether it is more useful to engage in more flexible processing of incoming information or to shield cognitive processes from incoming information (persistence-heavy processing). We examined EEG and behavioral data from a sample of N=191 healthy participants performing a Simon Go/Nogo task that can be assumed to induce different metacontrol states (persistence-biased vs. flexibility-biased). Aperiodic activity was estimated using the FOOOF toolbox in the EEG power spectrum. There was a higher aperiodic exponent and offset in Nogo trials compared to Go trials, in incongruent (Go) trials compared to congruent (Go) trials. Thus, aperiodic activity increases during persistence-heavy processing, but decreases during flexibility-heavy processing. These findings link aperiodic features of the EEG signal and concepts describing the dynamics of how cognitive control modes are applied. Therefore, the study substantially extends the importance of aperiodic activity in understanding cognitive functions.
... In the pursuit of validating one or the other theories, a multitude of variables, such as preparation time, previous interference residual switch costs, working memory, bivalence, similarity and other factors, have been investigated with regard to their relation to TSC [4,[10][11][12][13]. For a review of the two opposing theories and a summary of the influences of factors on TSC see [11,14]. ...
... Bivalency is of interest, especially when looking at task-rule incongruent and task-rule congruent responses [11]. In studies where both the stimuli as well as the responses are bivalent (the same responses are used for all keys, and all stimuli can be applied to all tasks), task-rule congruent stimuli (stimuli for which the correct response to the relevant as well as the irrelevant task are the same) are typically faster than task-rule incongruent stimuli (stimuli for which the correct response to the relevant task is not the same as to the irrelevant task [10]. This does not directly apply to the study of [15], as here each response was mapped to a different key and therefore the effect of task-rule incongruency was kept constant. ...
Considerable fundamental studies have focused on the mechanisms governing cognitive flexibility and the associated costs of switching between tasks. Task-switching costs refer to the phenomenon that reaction times and accuracy decrease briefly following the switch from one task to another. However, cognitive flexibility also impacts day-to-day life in many complex work environments where operators have to perform several different tasks. One major difference between typical tasks examined in fundamental studies and real-world applications is that fundamental studies often rely on much more similar tasks, which is not the case for real-world applications. In the latter, operators may switch between vastly dissimilar tasks. Therefore, this behavioural study aims to test if task-switching costs are different for switches between similar and dissimilar tasks. The proposed protocol has participants switch between 2 pairs of two tasks each. Between pairs, there is more dissimilarity, while the two tasks within each pair are more similar. In addition, this study examines the impact of mental fatigue and interference in form of confounding information on cognitive flexibility. To induce mental fatigue the participants' breaks between blocks will be limited. We expect that dissimilarity between tasks will result in greater task-switching costs.
... That is, constraints associated with control-dependent processing reflect the purpose rather than an intrinsic limitation of control mechanisms. This helps explain the association of control with flexibility of processing Cohen (2017); Duncan (2001); Goschke (2000); Kriete et al. (2013);Shiffrin & Schneider (1977); Verguts (2017): flexibility is afforded by shared representations, which require control to insure they are not subject to conflicting use by competing processes. It also explains why automaticity-achieved through the development of task-dedicated representations-takes longer to acquire and leads to less generalizable behavior (Logan, 1997). ...
A key property of neural networks (both biological and artificial) is how they learn to represent and manipulate input information in order to solve a task. Different types of representations may be suited to different types of tasks, making identifying and understanding learned representations a critical part of understanding and designing useful networks. In this paper, we introduce a new pseudo-kernel based tool for analyzing and predicting learned representations, based only on the initial conditions of the network and the training curriculum. We validate the method on a simple test case, before demonstrating its use on a question about the effects of representational learning on sequential single versus concurrent multitask performance. We show that our method can be used to predict the effects of the scale of weight initialization and training curriculum on representational learning and downstream concurrent multitasking performance.
... For example, while at the party you see your friend looking upset, which might induce the goal of ensuring the friend's well-being. Subsequently, dynamic goal pursuit requires the ability of attention to shift between different goal-relevant stimuli in a corresponding goal-adjusted manner (Goschke, 2000;Norman & Shallice, 1986;Robinson et al., 2006). As such, a static attention bias towards either positive or negative stimuli will be incompatible with the ability to pursue dynamically changing goals at any given time, and thereby adaptation in the long-run. ...
Successful adaptation to the environment requires attentional prioritization of emotional information relevant to the current situational demands. Accordingly, the presence of an attention bias (AB) for both positive and negative information may allow preferential processing of stimuli in line with the current situational goals. However, AB for negative information sometimes becomes maladaptive, being antithetical to the current adaptive needs and goals of an individual, such as in the case of affective disorders such as depression. Although difficulties in flexible shifting between emotional stimuli in depression have increasingly become a topic of discussion in the field, an integrative approach towards biased versus flexible emotional attentional processes remains absent. In the present paper, we advance a novel and integrative view of conceptualizing potentially aberrant affective attention patterns in depression as a function of the current contextual features. We propose that flexible emotional attention takes place as a result of attention prioritization towards goal-relevant emotional stimuli depending upon the current context of the individual. Specifically, the role of context, distal and proximal goals, and approach and avoidance motivation processes is considered in a unified manner. The empirical, clinical and interventional implications of this integrative framework provide a roadmap for future psychological and neurobiological experimental and translational research.
... Tullett and Inzlicht (2010) tested a go/no go task under verbal (repeating the word 'computer' at 2 Hz) and spatial (drawing circles) interference conditions and found that verbal interference increased impulsive responding (faster responses, more commission errors, fewer omission errors). There is also evidence to suggest that people use inner speech to cue themselves on what the relevant task is if they have to switch between multiple task rules (Baddeley et al., 2001;Emerson & Miyake, 2003;Goschke, 2000). While the dual-task method has been a very popular tool for testing the role of covert language in various tasks, it has not yet been used specifically to investigate the role of inner speech in motor control (Nedergaard et al., 2022). ...
In two preregistered experiments, we investigated whether covert language is involved in sustained physical efforts, specifically if people are less able to push themselves physically when distracted from using inner speech. In both experiments, participants performed 12 cycling trials (Experiment 1: N = 49; Experiment 2: N = 50), each lasting 1 min where participants were required to cycle as fast as possible while simultaneously engaging in either a visuospatial task, a verbal task or no interference. Experiment 1: Participants performed worse in the verbal interference condition compared with the control condition (d = 0.29) and verbal interference performance was numerically but not significantly worse than visuospatial interference (d = 0.22). Experiment 2: A more demanding interference task yielded significant slower cycling with verbal interference compared to both control (d = 1) and visuospatial interference (d = 0.43). These results indicate that inner speech plays a causal role in control of sustained physical efforts.
... Delivering an associated word response (e.g., cat [stimulus] → dog [response]) induces semantic activation within the connected parts of the conceptual network. So activated conceptual associates (e.g., animal, fur, barking, etc.) may carry over to the subsequent dissociative trial (Goschke, 2000), hence inducing a proactive cognitive interference slowing the performance (i.e., the pre-activated concepts in semantic memory impair the ability to find an unrelated response). Notably, the attempt to retrieve an unrelated response (e.g., dog → stone) also activates relevant features/associates within the conceptual network (e.g., rock, weight, wall, etc.), but these activations do not interfere with the subsequent associative task (e.g., stone → rock). ...
Growing evidence indicates that a domain-general executive control supports semantic memory retrieval, yet the nature of this interaction remains elusive. To shed light on such control mechanisms, we conducted two dual-task experiments loading distinct executive capacities (working memory maintenance, monitoring, and switching), while participants carried out automatic (free-associative) and controlled (dissociative) word retrieval tasks. We found that these forms of executive load interfered with retrieval fluency in both tasks, but these negative effects were more pronounced for the dissociative performance. Together, these findings indicate that the domain-general executive control supports accessing contextually relevant knowledge as well as the inhibition of automatically activated but task-inappropriate retrieval candidates, putatively via an adaptive gating of semantic activation and interference control. Moreover, the processing costs related to retrieval inhibition and switching were negatively correlated, suggesting a trade-off between the ability to constrain semantic activation (i.e., inhibition) and the ability to initiate flexible transitions between semantic sets (i.e., switching), which may thus represent two complementary control functions governing semantic memory retrieval.
... Delivering an associated word response (e.g., cat [stimulus] → dog [response]) induces semantic activation within the connected parts of the conceptual network. So activated conceptual associates (e.g., animal, fur, barking, etc.) may carry over to the subsequent dissociative trial (Goschke, 2000), hence inducing a proactive cognitive interference and slowing the performance (i.e., the pre-activated concepts in semantic memory impair the ability to find an unrelated response). Notably, the attempt to retrieve an unrelated response (e.g., dog → stone) also activates relevant features/associates within the conceptual network (e.g., rock, weight, wall, etc.), but these activations do not interfere with the subsequent associative task (e.g., stone → rock). ...
Growing evidence indicates that a domain-general executive control supports semantic memory retrieval, yet the nature of this interaction remains elusive. To shed light on such control mechanisms, we conducted two dual-task experiments loading distinct executive capacities (working memory maintenance, monitoring, and switching), while participants carried out automatic (free-associative) and controlled (dissociative) word retrieval tasks. We found that these forms of executive load interfered with retrieval fluency in both tasks, but these negative effects were more pronounced for the dissociative performance. Together, these findings indicate that the domain-general executive control supports accessing contextually relevant knowledge as well as the inhibition of automatically activated but task-inappropriate retrieval candidates, putatively via an adaptive gating of semantic activation and interference control. Moreover, the processing costs related to retrieval inhibition and switching were negatively correlated, suggesting a tradeoff between the ability to constrain semantic activation (i.e., inhibition) and the ability to initiate flexible transitions between semantic sets (i.e., switching), which may thus represent two complementary control functions governing semantic memory retrieval.
... Success in executing the task-specific arbitrary stimulus-response (S-R) links usually reflects an effective organization of the cognitive system by constraining the way in which perception is linked to action. In other words, the retrieval of an appropriate task-set allows participants to guide processing according to the S-R rules specified by the experimenter (e.g., Chen & Hsieh, 2015;Dreisbach & Haider, 2009;Goschke, 2000;Logan & Gordon, 2001;Sakai, 2008;. ...
There has been an increasing interest in uncovering the mechanisms underpinning how people decide which task to perform at a given time. Many studies suggest that task representations are crucial in guiding such voluntary task selection behavior, which is primarily reflected in a bias to select task repetitions over task switches. However, it is not yet clear whether the task-specific motor effectors are also a crucial component of task representations when deciding to switch tasks. Across three experiments using different voluntary task switching (VTS) procedures, we show that a greater overlap in task representations with a task-to-finger mapping than task-to-hand mapping increases participants’ switching behavior (Exp. 1 and Exp. 2), but not when they were instructed to randomly select tasks (Exp. 3). Thus, task-specific stimulus-response associations can change the way people mentally represent tasks and influence switching behavior, suggesting that motor effectors should be considered as a component of task representations in biasing cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive control can be applied flexibly when task goals or environments change (i.e., cognitive flexibility), or stably to pursue a goal in the face of distraction (i.e., cognitive stability). Whether these seemingly contradictory characteristics have an inverse relationship has been controversial, as some studies have suggested a trade-off mechanism between cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability, while others have not found such reciprocal associations. This study investigated the possible antagonistic correlation between cognitive flexibility and stability using a novel version of the flexibility-stability paradigm and the classic cued task switching paradigm. In Experiment 1, we showed that cognitive flexibility was inversely correlated with cognitive stability, as increased distractor proportions were associated with decreased cognitive flexibility and greater cognitive stability. Moreover, cognitive flexibility and stability were regulated by a single control system instead of two independent control mechanisms, as the model selection results indicated that the reciprocally regulated model with one integration parameter outperformed all other models, and the model parameter was inversely linked to cognitive flexibility and stability. We found similar results using the classic cued task switching paradigm in Experiment 2. Therefore, a trade-off between cognitive flexibility and stability was observed from the paradigms used in this study.
What does the cortex of human frontal lobe do? The best answer, at the moment, is that it participates in any form of structured brain work a subject can do when awake. Perception, voluntary action, thinking, remembering, calculating, reading, discriminating and speaking are all conscious activities that are characterized by an activation of prefrontal areas in conjunction with either motor areas or more posteriorly located cortical areas. This is one of the most important discoveries that has come from the metabolic studies on the human brain.