Mückschel Moritz, Stock Ann-Kathrin, Beste Christian
Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine of the TU Dresden, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2015 May 7;5:9992. doi: 10.1038/srep09992.
Every day, we need to apply different action control strategies to successfully interact with ever-changing environments. In situations requiring several responses, we often have to cascade different actions. The strategies used to accomplish this have been subject to extensive research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience but it has remained rather unclear if and to what degree such strategies are adapted while performing a task. Furthermore, we do not know if such adaptations are subject to differential effects depending on an individual's preferred initial strategy to cope with multiple-demand situations. Using Bayesian analyses, we were able to show that even though the applied strategy is subject to slight modulations over the course of an action cascading task, this shift is equally strong for subjects who differ their general action cascading strategy. The action cascading strategy subjects apply to cope with multiple-demand situations is adapted independent of the preferred, inter-individually varying strategy that is initially used. Future research needs to test if the task goal activation strategy applied during action cascading reflects a 'cognitive trait' and is stable across different situations.
每天，我们都需要应用不同的行动控制策略，以便成功地与不断变化的环境进行交互。在需要多种反应的情况下，我们常常不得不串联不同的行动。用于实现这一点的策略在认知心理学和神经科学领域受到了广泛研究，但在执行任务时，此类策略是否以及在何种程度上会得到调整，仍相当不明确。此外，我们不知道这种调整是否会因个体应对多重需求情况的首选初始策略而产生不同的影响。通过贝叶斯分析，我们能够表明，尽管所应用的策略在行动串联任务过程中会受到轻微调整，但对于采用不同一般行动串联策略的受试者来说，这种转变的程度是相同的。受试者用于应对多重需求情况的行动串联策略会独立于最初使用的个体间存在差异的首选策略而得到调整。未来的研究需要测试在行动串联过程中应用的任务目标激活策略是否反映一种“认知特质”，以及在不同情况下是否稳定。
