Elsevier

Acta Psychologica

Volume 145, January 2014, Pages 1-9
Acta Psychologica

Cognitive control in context: Working memory capacity and proactive control

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.10.010Get rights and content

Highlights

  • I examined the relationship between working memory and proactive control.

  • Proactive control was varied across tasks via cue-probe conditional probabilities.

  • Subjects high in working memory prepared advance responses.

  • Subjects low in working memory were more influenced by overall response frequencies.

Abstract

Working memory is important for maintaining critical information in an active state to guide future behavior. The executive-attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC; Engle & Kane, 2004) argues that goal maintenance is important for response selection when stimuli are associated with competing responses. Braver, Burgess, and Gray (2007) have labeled this type of preparatory activity proactive control. Previous WMC studies have not allowed individuals to use goal information to prepare a specific response in advance of the stimulus. The current experiment used different versions of a cue-probe task to examine the relationship between individual differences in WMC and proactive control. Across three versions of the AX version of the Continuous Performance Test, the proportion of targets was manipulated to affect both the predictive validity of the A cue and the prepotency of the target response to X probes. The results indicated that the high-WMC individuals used the cue information to prepare responses in advance only when a specific probe was likely to occur. In contrast, the performance of the low-WMC individuals was less dependent upon the cue and more contingent upon overall response frequencies. The results indicate that individual differences in WMC are related to proactive control and anticipation, and important for translating cognition into action.

Introduction

The notion of cognitive control has been invoked to explain performance in a number of activities. Broadly defined, cognitive control is the set of mental processes by which information is maintained in a temporary format to guide behavior towards task success, especially if there are competing alternative actions that could be selected instead of the desired target behavior. Braver, Gray, & Burgess (2007) (see also Braver, 2012) proposed a mechanistic account that attempts to synthesize the cognitive control literature. Specifically, their dual-mechanism theory of cognitive control provides a framework for understanding both person- and task-related variations in controlled behavior. Their model is also influenced by knowledge of neurotransmitter and neuroanatomical properties of the human cortex observed in both typical and atypical biological functioning. The current research sought to apply Braver et al.'s model to cognitive control variation observed in individuals varying in working memory capacity (WMC). More specifically, (a) do individuals high in WMC use proactive control to anticipate and prepare a response more often than low-WMC individuals, and (b) do high-WMC individuals adjust their use of proactive control based on the predictive nature of the cue-related information?

Section snippets

Executive-attention theory of working memory capacity

Engle and colleagues (Engle and Kane, 2004, Kane et al., 2007, Unsworth and Engle, 2007) have provided evidence that performance on complex working memory span tasks is predictive of behavior in a variety of situations. In a typical complex span task, such as Operation Span (Unsworth, Heitz, Schrock, & Engle, 2005), subjects must mentally solve math problems while also remembering letters for later recall. Variation in the ability to complete these types of tasks is used to measure individual

The dual-mechanism theory of cognitive control

While the executive-attention theory has been examined using young adults varying in WMC, Braver et al. (Braver et al., 2005, Braver et al., 2007) proposed the dual-mechanism theory of cognitive control initially to account for cognitive aging deficits. The theory derives its name from the two modes of control that are assumed to be responsible for flexible, goal-driven behavior. Proactive control involves the active maintenance of information that will help to respond appropriately to upcoming

Individual differences in WMC as variation in proactive control

Across multiple studies (Braver et al., 2009, Braver et al., 2001, Braver et al., 2005, Paxton et al., 2008, Paxton et al., 2006), older adults' performance on the AX-CPT-70 was consistent with reactive control (spared AY performance in either errors or correct RTs relative to young adults, but impaired BX performance), while the young adult groups exhibited performance consistent with engaging in proactive control (fast and accurate AX and BX performance). In addition, Braver et al. (2007)

Current research

Despite the evidence just reviewed, there are still several unanswered questions in regard to how individual differences in WMC are related to the use of proactive control. Redick and Engle (2011) examined how the length of cue-probe interval affected high- and low-WMC individuals' AX-CPT-70 performance. In the current research, young adults who had been previously classified as high- or low-WMC were tested on three different versions of the AX-CPT. I manipulated the proportion of AX trials to

Subjects

All subjects were between 18 and 30 years of age. Out of 122 young adults that completed the study, 60 high- and 60 low-WMC individuals were included in the final sample, with 20 high- and 20 low-WMC subjects in each version of the AX-CPT. One low-WMC subject in the AX-CPT-70 and one low-WMC subject in the AX-CPT-40 was classified as an outlier due to extremely low accuracy on AX trials, which led to an overall accuracy on probe trials of less than 70%. Trial type frequencies were manipulated

Accuracy comparison within each AX-CPT version

The full omnibus ANOVA output is provided in Table A.1. The three-way interaction was significant, F(6, 342) = 4.03, p = .001, partial η2 = .066, and follow-up analyses were conducted by examining performance separately for each level of Version and subsequently for each level of WMC to decompose this interaction.

Discussion

Across three experiments, the accuracy analyses produced several significant effects involving WMC. The analyses indicated that, compared to high-WMC individuals, low-WMC individuals made more: (a) AX errors on the AX-CPT-70, AX-CPT-10, and AX-CPT-40; and (b) BX errors on the AX-CPT-70 and AX-CPT-40. That is, across the various versions of the AX-CPT, the significant WMC differences in accuracy occurred when the probe decision involved the letter X. In all task versions, correctly responding to

Conclusion

The current research investigated individual differences in WMC in relation to the use of proactive control to maintain and translate cognition into preparatory action. The results indicated that high-WMC individuals are more likely than low-WMC individuals to use information conveyed by a cue to prepare a response in advance, especially when the cue information is predictive of subsequent action. In contrast, the performance of the low-WMC individuals was less dependent upon the cue and more

Acknowledgments

Thomas S. Redick, Purdue University.

This research was completed in partial fulfillment of the author's requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I thank the dissertation committee members (Randy Engle, Paul Corballis, Eric Schumacher, Dan Spieler, and David Washburn) for their helpful guidance throughout the project. I also thank Nash Unsworth, Whitney Hansen, Todd Braver, Gregory Burgess, Nelson Cowan, and the members of the Georgia Tech

References (25)

  • T.S. Braver

    The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual mechanisms framework

    Trends in Cognitive Sciences

    (2012)
  • H. Ruge et al.

    Attention, intention, and strategy in preparatory control

    Neuropsychologia

    (2009)
  • N. Unsworth et al.

    Lapses in sustained attention and their relation to executive control and fluid abilities: An individual differences investigation

    Intelligence

    (2010)
  • D.M. Barch et al.

    Context-processing deficits in schizophrenia: Diagnostic specificity, 4-week course, and relationships to clinical symptoms

    Journal of Abnormal Psychology

    (2003)
  • T.S. Braver et al.

    Context processing in older adults: Evidence for a theory relating cognitive control to neurobiology in healthy aging

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

    (2001)
  • T.S. Braver et al.

    Explaining the many varieties of working memory variation: Dual mechanisms of cognitive control

  • T.S. Braver et al.

    Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control within human prefrontal cortex

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

    (2009)
  • T.S. Braver et al.

    Context processing and context maintenance in healthy aging and early stage dementia of the Alzheimer's type

    Psychology and Aging

    (2005)
  • J.D. Cohen et al.

    Context-processing deficits in schizophrenia: Converging evidence from three theoretically motivated cognitive tasks

    Journal of Abnormal Psychology

    (1999)
  • E.C. Dias et al.

    Changing plans: A high density electrical mapping study of cortical control

    Cerebral Cortex

    (2003)
  • R.W. Engle et al.

    Executive attention, working memory capacity, and a two-factor theory of cognitive control

  • M.J. Kane et al.

    A controlled-attention view of working memory capacity

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

    (2001)
  • Cited by (80)

    • Planning on Autopilot? Associative Contributions to Proactive Control

      2023, Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      All procedures were approved by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (2020/208). Based on the sample size of previous studies (e.g., Redick, 2014; Van Wouwe et al., 2009) in the AX-CPT, we aimed to test at least 60 participants in each group of each experiments, though numbers vary depending on how quickly participants signed up for the experiment. 63 participants (46 female; Mage = 19.78, SDage = 1.71) were initially recruited for Experiment 1.

    • Impaired cognitive control in patients with brain tumors

      2022, Neuropsychologia
      Citation Excerpt :

      We may speculate that the lower performance of the patients' group on this memory test could have caused difficulty in context-maintenance, where “context” refers not only to the cue-probe associations, but also to the probability of occurrence of that trial in the whole task (Braem et al., 2019). In line with this, a previous work showed that AX-CPT performance of individuals with low working memory capacity is less dependent upon the preceding cue and more dependent upon overall response frequency (Redick, 2014). This evidence could explain the low performance on BX trials relative to AY trials (responses to B trials are much less frequent than responses to A trials) in our group of patients.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text