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Action dynamics reveal two types of cognitive flexibility in a homonym relatedness judgment task.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive flexibility is a central component of executive functions that allow us to behave meaningful in an ever changing environment. Here, we support a distinction between two different types of cognitive flexibility, shifting flexibility and spreading flexibility, based on independent underlying mechanisms commonly subsumed under the ability to shift cognitive sets. We use a homonym relatedness judgment task and combine it with mouse tracking to show that these two types of cognitive flexibility follow independent temporal patterns in their influence on participants' mouse movements during relatedness judgments. Our results are in concordance with the predictions of a neural field based framework that assumes the independence of the two types of flexibility. We propose that future studies about cognitive flexibility in the area of executive functions should take independent types into account, especially when studying moderators of cognitive flexibility.

SUBMITTER: Dshemuchadse M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4551828 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Action dynamics reveal two types of cognitive flexibility in a homonym relatedness judgment task.

Dshemuchadse Maja M Grage Tobias T Scherbaum Stefan S

Frontiers in psychology 20150828

Cognitive flexibility is a central component of executive functions that allow us to behave meaningful in an ever changing environment. Here, we support a distinction between two different types of cognitive flexibility, shifting flexibility and spreading flexibility, based on independent underlying mechanisms commonly subsumed under the ability to shift cognitive sets. We use a homonym relatedness judgment task and combine it with mouse tracking to show that these two types of cognitive flexibi ...[more]

PMID: 26379580

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Project description:Cognitive stability and flexibility are core functions in the successful pursuit of behavioral goals. While there is evidence for a common frontoparietal network underlying both functions and for a key role of dopamine in the modulation of flexible versus stable behavior, the exact neurocomputational mechanisms underlying those executive functions and their adaptation to environmental demands are still unclear. In this work we study the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying cue based task switching (flexibility) and distractor inhibition (stability) in a paradigm specifically designed to probe both functions. We develop a physiologically plausible, explicit model of neural networks that maintain the currently active task rule in working memory and implement the decision process. We simplify the four-choice decision network to a nonlinear drift-diffusion process that we canonically derive from a generic winner-take-all network model. By fitting our model to the behavioral data of individual subjects, we can reproduce their full behavior in terms of decisions and reaction time distributions in baseline as well as distractor inhibition and switch conditions. Furthermore, we predict the individual hemodynamic response timecourse of the rule-representing network and localize it to a frontoparietal network including the inferior frontal junction area and the intraparietal sulcus, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This refines the understanding of task-switch-related frontoparietal brain activity as reflecting attractor-like working memory representations of task rules. Finally, we estimate the subject-specific stability of the rule-representing attractor states in terms of the minimal action associated with a transition between different rule states in the phase-space of the fitted models. This stability measure correlates with switching-specific thalamocorticostriatal activation, i.e., with a system associated with flexible working memory updating and dopaminergic modulation of cognitive flexibility. These results show that stochastic dynamical systems can implement the basic computations underlying cognitive stability and flexibility and explain neurobiological bases of individual differences.

Dataset Information

Action dynamics reveal two types of cognitive flexibility in a homonym relatedness judgment task.

Publications

Action dynamics reveal two types of cognitive flexibility in a homonym relatedness judgment task.

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