Powerful Instructions: Automaticity Without Practice

Meiran, Nachshon; Liefooghe, Baptist; Houwer, Jan De

doi:10.1177/0963721417711638

Cited by 56 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Within the study of human cognitive and motor control, appreciable progress has been made in describing the connection between symbolic information integration and complex action learning, opening new lines of research on how verbal instructions influence the neural and cognitive correlates of human behavior (Meiran, Liefooghe, & De Houwer, 2017;Demanet et al, 2016;Meiran, Pereg, Kessler, Cole, & Braver, 2015;Everaert, Theeuwes, Liefooghe, & De Houwer, 2014;Liefooghe, De Houwer, & Wenke, 2013;Liefooghe, Wenke, & De Houwer, 2012;Ruge & Wolfensteller, 2010). In this respect, this study aims to expand upon recent findings on the role of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) in implementing and memorizing verbal instructions at different levels of information processing and training.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encoding of Novel Verbal Instructions for Prospective Action in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex: Evidence from Univariate and Multivariate Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis

Bourguignon

Braem

Hartstra

et al. 2018

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ Verbal instructions are central to humans' capacity to learn new behaviors with minimal training, but the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in verbally instructed behaviors remain puzzling. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence suggests that the right middle frontal gyrus and dorsal premotor cortex (rMFG-dPMC) supports the translation of symbolic stimulus-response mappings into sensorimotor representations. Here, we set out to (1) replicate this finding, (2) investigate whether this region's involvement is specific to novel (vs. trained) instructions, and (3) study whether rMFG-dPMC also shows differences in its (voxel) pattern response indicative of general cognitive processes of instruction implementation. Participants were shown instructions, which they either had to perform later or merely memorize. Orthogonal to this manipulation, the instructions were either entirely novel or had been trained before the fMRI session. Results replicate higher rMFG-dPMC activation levels during instruction implementation versus memorization and show how this difference is restricted to novel, but not trained, instruction presentations. Pattern similarity analyses at the voxel level further reveal more consistent neural pattern responses in rMFG-dPMC during the implementation of novel versus trained instructions. In fact, this more consistent neural pattern response seemed to be specific to the first instruction presentation and disappeared after the instruction had been applied once. These results further support a role of rMFGdPMC in the implementation of novel task instructions and highlight potentially important differences in studying this region's gross activation levels versus (the consistency of ) its response patterns. ■

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encoding of Novel Verbal Instructions for Prospective Action in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex: Evidence from Univariate and Multivariate Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis

Bourguignon

Braem

Hartstra

et al. 2018

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Automatic effects of instructions reflect the case in which novel instructions are prematurely activated in an inappropriate context [2,20,21]. Specifically, and going back to the NEXT paradigm, just prior to implementing the instructions (in the GO phase), participants encounter the instructed stimuli in RED color, where they are requested to simply advance the screen using a constant NEXT response (either left or right, counterbalanced between participants; see Fig 1, upper panel).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid instructed task learning (but not automatic effects of instructions) is influenced by working memory load

Pereg

Meiran

2019

PLoS ONE

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The ability to efficiently perform actions immediately following instructions and without prior practice has previously been termed Rapid Instructed Task Learning (RITL). In addition, it was found that instructions are so powerful that they can produce automatic effects, reflected in activation of the instructions in an inappropriate task context. RITL is hypothesized to rely on limited working memory (WM) resources for holding not-yet implemented task rules. Similarly, automatic effects of instructions presumably reflect the operation of task rules kept in WM. Therefore, both were predicted to be influenced by WM load. However, while the involvement of WM in RITL is implicated from prior studies, evidence regarding WM involvement in instructions-based automaticity is mixed. In the current study, we manipulated WM load by increasing the number of novel task rules to be held in WM towards performance in the NEXT paradigm. In this task, participants performed a series of novel tasks presented in mini-blocks, each comprising a) instructions of novel task rules; b) a NEXT phase measuring the automatic activation of these instructed rules, in which participants advance the screen using a key-press; and c) a GO phase in which the new rules are first implemented and RITL is measured. In three experiments, we show a dissociation: While RITL (rule implementation) was impaired by increased WM load, the automatic effects of instructions were not robustly influenced by WM load. Theoretical implications are discussed.

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“…Many studies have pointed out that instructions can determine the stimulus features by which responses are being selected (cf. the study [44] and the review [45] by Meiran and colleagues), as long as they can be effectively represented (cf. Duncan et al [46]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incidental covariation learning leading to strategy change

et al. 2019

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As they approach a traffic light, drivers and pedestrians monitor the color (instructed stimulus feature) and/or the position of the signal (covarying stimulus feature) for response selection. Many studies have pointed out that instructions can effectively determine the stimulus features used for response selection in a task. This leaves open whether and how practice with a correlating alternative stimulus feature can lead to a strategy change from an instructed to a learned variant of performing the task. To address this question, we instructed participants to respond to the position of a stimulus within a reference frame, at the same time, during task performance, an unmentioned second stimulus feature, the color, covaried with stimulus position and allowed the use of an alternative response strategy. To assess the impact of the non-instructed stimulus feature of color on response selection throughout practice, the spatial position of the stimulus was ambiguous on some trials. Group average increases in color usage were based on a mixture of (1) participants who, despite extended practice on the covariation, exclusively relied on the instructed stimulus feature and (2) those who abruptly started to rely heavily on stimulus color to select responses in ambiguous trials. When the instructed and uninstructed feature predicted different actions, choices were still biased by the uninstructed color feature, albeit more weakly. A second experiment showed that the influence of color generalized across frequently and infrequently presented combinations of position and color. Strategy changes were accompanied by awareness in both experiments. The results suggest that incidental covariation learning can trigger spontaneous voluntary strategy change involving a re-configuration of the instructed task set.

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Powerful Instructions: Automaticity Without Practice

Cited by 56 publications

References 26 publications

Encoding of Novel Verbal Instructions for Prospective Action in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex: Evidence from Univariate and Multivariate Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis

Encoding of Novel Verbal Instructions for Prospective Action in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex: Evidence from Univariate and Multivariate Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis

Rapid instructed task learning (but not automatic effects of instructions) is influenced by working memory load

Incidental covariation learning leading to strategy change

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