The Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (DMCC) project: Validation of an online behavioural task battery

Tang, Rongxiang; Bugg, Julie M.; Snijder, Jean-Paul; Conway, Andrew R. A.; Braver, Todd S.

doi:10.1177/17470218221114769

Cited by 11 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…3D-G). We considered the domain-general mechanism of cognitive control, which proposes that proactive, strategic cognitive control shares its control mode across tasks that recruit different cognitive elements (Braver, 2012; Braver et al, 2007; Tang et al, 2022). If adaptive ability to become free of a specific habit (e.g., standard choice habits) generalises to adaptive ability to become free of another habit (transition habits or reinforcement habits), for example because both depend on a common, domain-general mechanism, then we would find a correlation between measures of adaptive autonomy elicited by different types of punishments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3D-F). Theories of domain-general cognitive control propose that proactive, strategic cognitive control acts similarly across cognitive tasks (T. S. Braver, 2012; T. S. Braver et al, 2007; Tang et al, 2022). The adaptive ability to become free of one kind of habit would be expected to correlate with the ability to become free of another habit, to the extent that both depend on a common, domain-general mechanism.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We found no strong correlations between these three types of adaptive autonomy, making a single common underpinning cognitive control function unlikely, and supporting the idea that behavioural autonomy involves dissociable components. In tasks where participants react to external stimuli quickly, it has been suggested that a domain-general top-down control is used to solve different cognitive tasks (T. S. Braver, 2012; T. S. Braver et al, 2007; Tang et al, 2022). However, in free, stimulus-independent action, our results suggest that a domain-specific top-down control independently regulates each particular form of autonomy: there are multiple ways to act freely, and it is important to consider from what an agent may be free.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Measures Of Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this sense, our different experimental conditions should motivate participants to break the corresponding habit, and move from model-free towards model-based behaviour. Adaptive autonomy might reflect a general capacity to suppress any type of habits by developing appropriate new model-based, strategic cognitive control(T. S. Braver, 2012; T. S. Braver, Gray, & Burgess, 2007; Tang, Bugg, Snijder, Conway, & Braver, 2022), or it might alternatively be specific to a particular habit family. To investigate this question, we explored correlations across individuals in our adaptive autonomy measures for each habit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous behaviour and the limits of human volition

Ota

Charlès

Haggard

2022

Preprint

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The capacity for autonomous behaviour is key to human intelligence, and fundamental to modern social life. However, experimental investigations of the cognitive bases of human autonomy are challenging, because experimental paradigms typically constrain behaviour using controlled contexts, and elicit behaviour by external triggers. In contrast, the sources of human autonomy and freedom are assumed to be endogenous. Here we propose a new theoretical construct of adaptive autonomy, meaning the capacity to make behavioural choices that are free from constraints of both immediate triggers and habitual responding. Participants played a competitive game in which they had to choose the right time to act, in the face of an opponent who punished (in separate blocks) either choice biases, habitual sequences of action timing across trials, or habitual responses to the effects of reinforcement. Adaptive autonomy with respect to each habit was measured by the ability to maintain performance against the opponent even when the corresponding habit was punished. We found that participants were able, under pressure from their opponent, to become free from habitual choices of when to act, but were not able to free themselves from win-stay, lose-shift patterns of reinforcement, even when these resulted in punishment. These results propose a new testing ground of autonomous behaviour as a flexible adaptation of more or less habitual behaviours that co-exist with different classes of external constraint.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%