Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 63, Issue 1, 15 October 2012, Pages 126-136
NeuroImage

Dynamic goal states: Adjusting cognitive control without conflict monitoring

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.021Get rights and content

Abstract

A central topic in the cognitive sciences is how cognitive control is adjusted flexibly to changing environmental demands at different time scales to produce goal-oriented behavior. According to an influential account, the context-sensitive recruitment of cognitive control is mediated by a specialized conflict monitoring process that registers current conflict and signals the demand for enhanced control in subsequent trials. This view has been immensely successful not least due to supporting evidence from neuroimaging studies suggesting that the conflict monitoring function is localized within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which, in turn, signals the demand for enhanced control to the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In this article, we propose an alternative model of the adaptive regulation of cognitive control based on multistable goal attractor network dynamics and adjustments of cognitive control within a conflict trial. Without incorporation of an explicit conflict monitoring module, the model mirrors behavior in conflict tasks accounting for effects of response congruency, sequential conflict adaptation, and proportion of incongruent trials. Importantly, the model also mirrors frequency tagged EEG data indicating continuous conflict adaptation and suggests a reinterpretation of the correlation between ACC and the PFC BOLD data reported in previous imaging studies. Together, our simulation data propose an alternative interpretation of both behavioral data as well as imaging data that have previously been interpreted in favor of a specialized conflict monitoring process in the ACC.

Highlights

► We present a computational model of cognitive control processes. ► The model uses network dynamics instead of a specialized conflict monitoring module. ► The model mirrors behavioral conflict adaptation and EEG data. ► It mirrors neural correlations of previous imaging studies between ACC and PFC. ► A special conflict monitoring module is not necessary for conflict adaptation.

Introduction

While on your way to the kitchen to get a knife, coming across the watering can you start to water your plants, wondering later what you originally intended to do in the kitchen. This everyday example illustrates the importance of cognitive control processes when we pursue goals in environments that contain abundant distracting affordances. Focusing on goals is necessary to perform non-routine tasks successfully, especially in the face of competition from prepotent habitual or stimulus-triggered responses. In experimental psychology, the context-sensitive recruitment of cognitive control processes has often been studied by using conflict tasks.

In such conflict tasks, the basic recruitment of cognitive control processes is measured by the size of the ‘congruency effect’, that is, the difference in response time (RT) between incongruent (response conflict) and congruent (no response conflict) trials. This congruency effect is supposed to reflect the additional time necessary to resolve increased response conflict in incongruent as compared to congruent trials. For instance, in the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935) participants have to name the ink color of a color word (e.g. ‘red’) while ignoring the word meaning (e.g. ‘blue’). When the color and the word meaning are incongruent, RT is increased compared to trials on which color and word meaning are congruent. Similarly, in the flanker task (Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974), participants have to respond to a centrally presented target (e.g. letters), but have to ignore surrounding flanker stimuli, which typically produce increased RT when the response indicated by the target and the response indicated by the flanker stimuli are incongruent.

Importantly, for the mentioned conflict tasks it has been found that the congruency effect (i.e., reflecting additional time needed to resolve conflict) can be modulated by additional context variables implicating processes of control adjustments working on different time scales. On a short time scale, conflict in the previous trial modulates the recruitment of control, leading to a reduced congruency effect following incongruent trials (Gratton et al., 1992). Hence, this ‘conflict adaptation effect’ could reflect a process that adjusts control from trial to trial. On a longer time scale, the overall frequency of incongruent trials modulates the basic recruitment of control, leading to an increased congruency effect for a lower overall frequency of incongruent trials (Gratton et al., 1992, Tzelgov et al., 1992). Hence, this ‘congruency proportion effect’, could reflect a process that adjusts control across a series of trials.

Section snippets

Conflict monitoring theory

A major step towards a mechanistic explanation of the context-sensitive regulation of cognitive control was taken when Botvinick et al. (2001) presented the conflict monitoring theory, which is still one of the most influential attempts to account for flexible adjustments of cognitive control. This theory offered a powerful and parsimonious account of the context-sensitive regulation of cognitive control with its central assumption that a specific neural module, localized within the anterior

Continuous conflict adaptation without conflict monitoring

In this article, we propose an alternative neural network model that integrates the two views with the original idea of conflict monitoring theory, namely that conflict is responsible for increases of cognitive control. However, instead of an explicit conflict detection and signaling module causing these increases, we propose that context-sensitive adjustments of cognitive control occur within trials (see also Mayr and Awh, 2009), as an emergent by-product of the interaction dynamics within the

Layers

An outline of our model can be seen in Fig. 1A (for details, please see Appendix I). Similar to the structure of previous models solving conflict tasks (Botvinick et al., 2001, Cohen et al., 1992, Gilbert and Shallice, 2002), the model contains two input layers, a response layer and a task/goal layer.

The units in the input layers represent the relevant and irrelevant information in a conflict task, e.g. color and word meaning in a Stroop task. The output layer contains units indicating the

Discussion

We presented a dynamic connectionist model as an account of how cognitive control could be adjusted continuously within trials and without building on an explicit conflict monitoring module. As a proof of concept, the model successfully reproduces standard effects indicating the adaptation of control across trials, i.e. conflict adaptation and the proportion congruent effect. Critically, the model was able to account for these effects without the assumption of an explicit conflict monitoring

Acknowledgment

This research was partly supported by the German Research Council (DFG) (grant SFB 940/1 2012).

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