Examining the Trainability and Transferability of Working-Memory Gating Policies

Abstract

Internal working memory (WM) gating control policies have been suggested to constitute a critical component of task-sets that can be learned and transferred to very similar task contexts (Bhandari and Badre (Cognition, 172, 33–43, 2018). Here, we attempt to expand these findings, examining whether such control policies can be also trained and transferred to other untrained cognitive control tasks, namely to task switching and AX-CPT. To this end, a context-processing WM task was used for training, allowing to manipulate either input (i.e., top-down selective entry of information into WM) or output (i.e., bottom-up selective retrieval of WM) gating control policies by employing either a context-first (CF) or context-last (CL) task structure, respectively. In this task, two contextual cues were each associated with two different stimuli. In CF condition, each trial began with a contextual cue, determining which of the two subsequent stimuli is target relevant. In contrast, in the CL condition the contextual cue appeared last, preceded by a target and non-target stimulus successively. Participants completed a task switching baseline assessment, followed by one practice and six training blocks with the WM context-processing training task. After completing training, task-switching and AX-CPT transfer blocks were administrated, respectively. As hypothesized, compared to CL training condition, CF training led to improved task-switching performance. However, contrary to our predictions, training type did not influence AX-CPT performance. Taken together, the current results provide further evidence that internal control policies are (1) inherent element of task-sets, also in task switching and (2) independent of S-R mappings. However, these results need to be cautiously interpreted due to baseline differences in task-switching performance between the conditions (overall slower RTs in the CF condition). Importantly though, our results open a new venue for the realm of cognitive enhancement, pointing here for the first time to the potential of control policies training in promoting wider transfer effects.

Evidence for positive and negative transfer of abstract task knowledge in adults and school-aged children

“…We have therefore demonstrated that both adults and 9-to 10-year-olds learn what approach they take to engage cognitive control from the repetition of task performance and so acquire knowledge of the temporal structure of task goal activation. In terms of adults, these findings are consistent with, and go beyond, previous studies (e.g., Bhandari & Badre, 2018;Sabah et al, 2021). Those studies demonstrated negative transfer effects using a working memory task, whereas we have extended this work by showing comparable results using the cued task-switching paradigm and the AX-CPT.…”

“…Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Bhandari & Badre, 2018;Sabah et al, 2021;Yanaoka et al, 2022) Experiments 3 and 4 provide further evidence that clarifies how learning a collective body of task knowledge positively affects cognitive control in a subsequent condition. In Experiment 4, we observed that school-aged children showed positive transfer effects on direct measures of using proactive/reactive control in the AX-CPT.…”

“…A few studies have examined whether learning task knowledge of the temporal structure of the activation of task goals affects how individuals transfer cognitive control to different task environments (Bhandari & Badre, 2018Gonthier et al, 2021;Sabah et al, 2021;Yanaoka et al, 2022). For example, Bhandari and Badre (2018) focused on proactive and reactive control strategies in a working memory task (i.e., input and output gating policies), demonstrating that adults show positive or negative transfer of a control strategy across working memory tasks that differ in their stimulus-response mappings.…”

Prior task experience increases 5‐year‐old children's use of proactive control: Behavioral and pupillometric evidence

“…We assume that this knowledge is essential in learning to engage proactive control. Recently, it has been established that adults learn when to activate a task goal in accordance with a task's temporal structure through the repetition of task experience (Bhandari & Badre, 2018, 2020; Bhandari et al., 2017; Sabah et al., 2021). Bhandari and Badre (2018) highlighted two control “policies” used in a working memory task, that is an input gating policy (first processing contextual information and then subsequently updating only items relevant to the context in working memory) and an output gating policy (accumulating all information and then subsequently processing contextual information and selecting only items relevant to the context).…”