Kang Moon Sun, Yu-Chin Chiu
Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States.
Front Psychol. 2022 Dec 1;13:1032304. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1032304. eCollection 2022.
Metacontrol arises from the efficient retrieval of cognitive control by environmental cues that are predictive of the upcoming control demands. Previous studies have demonstrated that proactive and reactive metacontrol can be indexed by a list-wide switch probability (LWSP) and an item-specific switch probability (ISSP) effect, respectively. However, what triggers metacontrol in the first place has not been clearly articulated. While a "mere-experience" hypothesis attributes metacontrol to changes in control demands, an "affective-signaling" hypothesis suggests that high control demands are aversive and aversiveness drives metacontrol. In two experiments, we adjudicated between these hypotheses by considering the modes of metacontrol (proactive vs. reactive) and temporal dynamics of background valence (sustained vs. transient and positive vs. negative). We induced metacontrol (proactive or reactive) in a task-switching paradigm and created background valence by using positive and negative images as stimuli. With valence being an irrelevant aspect of the task, the design allows us to test whether (task-irrelevant) background valence would modulate metacontrol. While we were able to replicate the LWSP effect in Experiment 1 and the ISSP effect in Experiment 2, we did not find valence modulating either effect, regardless of the background valence being a sustained (Experiment 1) or a transient one (Experiment 2). These findings together suggest that negative valence (i.e., aversiveness) does not necessarily benefit metacontrol, and control demand variations are sufficient to induce metacontrol.
元控制源于通过预测即将到来的控制需求的环境线索对认知控制的有效检索。先前的研究表明，前摄性和反应性元控制可以分别通过全列表切换概率（LWSP）和特定项目切换概率（ISSP）效应来索引。然而，最初触发元控制的因素尚未得到明确阐述。虽然“纯粹经验”假说将元控制归因于控制需求的变化，但“情感信号”假说表明，高控制需求是令人厌恶的，而厌恶感驱动元控制。在两项实验中，我们通过考虑元控制的模式（前摄性与反应性）和背景效价的时间动态（持续与短暂以及积极与消极）来对这些假说进行裁决。我们在任务切换范式中诱导元控制（前摄性或反应性），并使用正性和负性图像作为刺激来创建背景效价。由于效价是任务的一个不相关方面，该设计使我们能够测试（与任务无关的）背景效价是否会调节元控制。虽然我们能够在实验1中复制LWSP效应，在实验2中复制ISSP效应，但我们没有发现效价调节任何一种效应，无论背景效价是持续的（实验1）还是短暂的（实验2）。这些发现共同表明，负性效价（即厌恶感）不一定有利于元控制，并且控制需求的变化足以诱导元控制。
