Task-Switch Related Reductions in Neural Distinctiveness in Children and Adults: Commonalities and Differences

Abstract

Goal-directed behavior requires the ability to flexibly switch between task sets with changing environmental demands. Switching between tasks generally comes at the cost of slower and less accurate responses. Compared to adults, children show greater switch costs, presumably reflecting the protracted development of the ability to flexibly update task-set representations. To examine whether the distinctiveness of neural task-set representations is more strongly affected by a task switch in children compared to adults, we examined multi-voxel patterns of fMRI activation in 88 children (8–11 years, 49 girls) and 53 adults (20–30 years, 28 women) during a task-switching paradigm. Using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we investigated whether task-set representations were less distinct on switch than on repeat trials across frontoparietal, cingulo-opercular, and temporo-occipital regions. Children and adults showed lower accuracy and longer response times on switch than on repeat trials, with higher accuracy costs in children. Decoding accuracy across regions was lower on switch than repeat trials, consistent with the notion that switching reduces the distinctiveness of task-set representations. Reliable age differences in switch-related representational distinctiveness reductions were absent, pointing to a remarkable degree of maturity of neural representations of task-relevant information in late childhood. However, we also observed that switch-related reductions in distinctiveness were more highly correlated across frontoparietal and cingulo-opercular regions in children than in adults, potentially reflecting the ongoing specialization of different control networks with respect to the representation of task features.Significance statementThe ability to flexibly switch between tasks enables goal-directed behavior, but is particularly challenging for children, potentially due to protracted development in the ability to represent multiple and overlapping task rules that link stimuli to appropriate responses. We tested this hypothesis by using neuroimaging to measure brain activity during task switching in 8–11-year-olds and adults. Activation patterns in frontal, parietal, and temporal regions could tell us with above-chance accuracy which task a person was performing when the task remained the same, but not when it had switched. Adults showed greater differentiation across regions in terms of switch-related reductions in distinctiveness than children, suggesting that the relevant functional circuity is present but has not yet fully matured by late childhood.