Enhancing task-demands disrupts learning but enhances transfer gains in short-term task-switching training

Abstract

Content variability was previously suggested to promote stronger learning effects in cognitive training whereas less variability incurred transfer costs (Sabah et al. Psychological Research, 10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7, 2018). Here, we expanded these findings by additionally examining the role of learners’ control in short-term task-switching training by comparing voluntary task-switching to a yoked control forced task-switching condition. To this end, four training conditions were compared: (1) forced fixed content, (2) voluntary fixed content, (3) forced varied content, and (3) voluntary varied content. To further enhance task demands, bivalent stimuli were used during training. Participants completed baseline assessment commencing with task-switching and verbal fluency blocks, followed by seven training blocks and last by task-switching (near transfer) and verbal fluency (far transfer) blocks, respectively. For the baseline and transfer task-switching blocks, we used the exact same baseline and first transfer block from Sabah et al. (Psychological Research, 10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7, 2018), employing univalent stimuli and alternating-runs task sequence. Our results pointed again to the contribution of content variability to task-switching performance. No indications for far transfer were observed. Allowing for learners’ control was not found to produce additional transfer gains beyond content variability. A between-study comparison suggests that enhanced task demands, by means of bivalency, promoted higher transfer gains in the current study when compared to Sabah et al. (Psychological Research, 10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7, 2018). Taken together, the current results provide further evidence to the beneficial impact of variability on training outcomes. The lack of modulatory effect for learners’ control is discussed in relation to possible methodological limitations.

Keep flexible—Keep switching? Boundary conditions of the influence of forced task switching on voluntary task switching.

“…Switch proportion effects could be mediated by task cue- or item-triggered priming of a context-sensitive control setting. This lack of transfer to other tasks also fits with cognitive training studies demonstrating that switch costs decrease over training when the same tasks are used, but substantial costs reemerge when participants are confronted with new tasks to switch between (Sabah et al, 2019, 2021). With respect to theories on relative levels of task-set activation, Siqi-Liu and Egner (2020) suggest that less activation (and shielding) of both task sets is more likely than increased activation of both task sets to explain the switch probability effect.…”

“…Two recent (short-term) cognitive training studies furthermore emphasize the importance of differentiating between task-specific and more general cognitive flexibility (Sabah et al, 2019(Sabah et al, , 2021. These studies suggest that task-specific flexibility can in fact result in increased task shielding and as a consequence reduced flexibility for new tasks (Sabah et al, 2019(Sabah et al, , 2021. In Sabah et al (2019), the authors showed that extended training of switching between the same two tasks and stimuli-while keeping the probability of a switch constant-leads to a reduction in switch costs between these tasks.…”

Appealing to the cognitive miser: Using demand avoidance to modulate cognitive flexibility in cued and voluntary task switching.

“…Failing to appropriately adapt to cognitive demand-an inability to monitor or anticipate demand, the same lines, it is interesting to consider our results from a "cognitive training" perspective (e.g., Karbach & Kray, 2009;Sabah et al, 2019). A recent study (Sabah et al, 2020), for instance, found increased content variability improved task switching training and including interference (i.e., bivalent stimuli) promoted higher transfer gains, in terms of switching efficiency, as compared with a previous study (Sabah et al, 2019). From this perspective, one might have expected that training participants with high-demand task-repetitions would have improved performance on repetitions, increasing subsequent switch costs.…”

Learning the Abstract General Task Structure in a Rapidly Changing Task Content

“…Accordingly, Dreisbach and Wenke (2011), suggested that abstract learning (high-order as opposed to S-R mapping rules) supports transfer to different contexts. Further support for these notions is found in Sabah et al's works (Sabah et al, 2019(Sabah et al, , 2020, showing that when relatively more abstract learning is required (by means of hindering concrete learning), greater transfer gains are observed.…”