The (in)flexibility of control adaptations

自适应控制是认知和行为灵活性的基础。它对正常衰老很敏感，其功能障碍与神经和精神疾病密切相关。总体而言，人类具有惊人的能力，能够灵活地调整行动和思维，以应对环境不断变化的要求。与此同时，他们可能会意外地陷入SET，例如，当他们继续使用以前成功但不再适应的处理策略时。这种卡套现象最初在问题解决任务(Luchins，1942)中被报道，不仅限于额叶患者的坚持性等神经心理异常，最近也被报道在健康个体的背景加工-和反应冲突-任务中的控制策略(例如，Abrahamse，Duthoo，Notebaert，&Risko，2013；Hefer&Dreisbach，2017)。在这个研究项目中，我们打算调查两个迄今被高度忽视的现象，它们暴露了被大肆吹嘘的认知灵活性的一个弱点：(1)在屏蔽控制模式和更宽松的控制模式之间切换时的不对称成本，这表明比反之亦然，更难从屏蔽控制模式切换到更宽松的控制模式。以及(2)观察到，使控制适应不同背景要求的灵活性进一步受到背景变化的波动性和频率的限制。自适应控制对认知和行为灵活性的重要性突出了理解潜在的认知机制(例如，不同控制状态的灵活接触)的必要性，这可能为后续的翻译研究提供肥沃的基础。

Adaptive control forms the basis of cognitive and behavioral flexibility. It is sensitive to normal aging and its malfunction is closely related to neurological and psychiatric conditions. In general, human beings have the astonishing ability to flexibly adapt action and thought in response to changing requirements from the environment. At the same time, they can be surprisingly stuck in set, for example when they continue using a formerly successful but no longer adaptive processing strategy. Such stuck-in-set phenomena, originally reported in problem solving tasks (Luchins, 1942) are not restricted to neuropsychological abnormalities like perseveration in frontal lobe patients but have recently also been reported for control strategies in context processing- and response conflict-tasks in healthy individuals (e.g., Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, & Risko, 2013; Hefer & Dreisbach, 2017). In this research project, we intend to investigate two so far highly neglected phenomena that expose a weakness of the much-vaunted cognitive flexibility: (1) The asymmetrical costs when switching between a shielded and a more relaxed mode of control, which show that it can be harder to let go from a shielding control mode and switch to a more relaxed control mode than vice versa. And (2) the observation that the flexibility to adapt control to different context demands is further limited by the volatility and frequency of context changes. The importance of adaptive control for cognitive and behavioral flexibility highlights the need for understanding the underlying cognitive mechanisms (e.g., the flexible (dis)engagement of different control states), which may offer fertile grounds for subsequent translational research.