Project Details
Projekt
How Binding and Retrieval of Control-States Supports Cognitive Control
Applicant
Professor Dr. David Dignath
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Term
since 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 393269228
This research project aims to clarify the role of binding and retrieval in cognitive control. Cognitive control, the ability to flexibly adapt behaviour to current task demands, has been a central topic for psychological research, yet it is currently not well understood how control is supported by mnemonic processes. The 1st funding period resulted in a new theoretical perspective on binding and retrieval, suggesting that both are not limited to stimulus-response (S-R) features. Instead, event-files can store a snapshot of the current attentional setting — a so-called control-state, and retrieval of this file on a later occasion tends to re-establish the stored control state. Because of a control-state retrieval, attention is immediately biased in a similar way as during the episode the control-state was stored. Importantly, control-states do not depend on concrete S-R features, but operate on the basis of more abstract information, such as temporal order or the weighting of target and distractor features. The notion of binding and retrieval of abstract control-states significantly extends the scope of the ´Binding and Retrieval in Action-control´ (BRAC) framework and provides leverage to account for a range of effects beyond S-R retrieval. The first funding period provided support for this hypothesis. Using the congruence sequence effect (CSE) to assess cognitive control, we found enhanced CSEs when an irrelevant context-feature repeats across two consecutive trials, suggesting that repetition of context acts as a retrieval cue for control-states. Because the design employed excluded possible contributions of concrete S-R binding, this effect indicates retrieval of abstract control-states. A series of experiments replicated and extended this finding for relevant variables (e.g., different tasks, contexts and time-ranges). Building on these findings, the 2nd funding period aims to enhance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying control-state retrieval and to extend the notion of binding and retrieval of control-state to other phenomena beyond cognitive control. To achieve these aims, three work packages are planned to specify the retrieval of control-states, explore the interplay between sustained learning and transient binding of control-states, and test a possible extension of control-state retrieval to research on emotion regulation. By investigating how mechanisms of binding and retrieval incorporate abstract control-states, the proposed project will answer important questions of how mnemonic processes support cognitive control.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Subproject of
FOR 2790:
Binding and Retrieval in Action Control
