Research On The Differences Between The Voluntary Task-switching And The Exogenous Clue-driven Task-switching

In the ever-changing world,individuals can only maintain the flexibility of thinking and action at any time,and they can quickly and effective ly respond to the changing environment around them.Maintaining the flexibility of thinking and action depends on human advanced cognitive functions—executive control functions.It enables us to coordinate perceptions,perceptions,motivations,and reconfigure these processes in a variety of environments.Maintaining coordinated and orderly behaviors and encouraging individuals to adapt to a variety of environmental changes.However,the previous research on executive control was mainly conducted through cognitive tasks induced by exogenous clues(such as the task switch paradigm).In our daily live,we can not only induce us to perform tasks through exogenous clues.There are also many cases where switch is performed through endogenous autonomy.In 2004,Arrington and Logan first discussed the task switching behavior resulting from the intra-individual business graph,namely the transfer of autonomous tasks.Since then,the conversion of autonomous tasks has become one of the hot spots in the field of executive control research.However,the reasons for the switch induced by voluntary and exogenous cues are different,so their processing and neural mechanisms may also be different,and many research results show that there are reaction times and errors in the switch of the two tasks.The difference in rates,in turn,supports this speculation.However,the difference in the processing and neural mechanisms of the two switch methods is not yet clear.In view of this,this study focuses on the above two points,through the two sets of experiments induced by exogenous cue-induced task switching and voluntary task switch,a comprehensive and systematic review of the neural mechanisms of the two switch methods and the differences between the two task processing mechanisms.Experiment 1,the process of cognition processing of the exogenous clue-driven task-switching tasks was explored.Using task-clue switching paradigm and EEG technology,a total of 24 subjects were recruited and 24 valid experimental data were collected.Through behavioral data and ERP data found that:(1)From the point of view of reaction time and error rate,the respo nse time and error rate of the switch task are greater than the response time and error rate of the repetitive task,indicating that regardless of whether the clues and stimuli occur at the same time or not,the task switch induced by the exogenous cues will produce switch cost;(2)Task transformation induced by exogenous cue was mainly controlled by prefrontal and parietal cortex;(3)The difference between exogenous cue-inducing task switching and repetitive tasks is reflected in three processing processes: First,The endogenous preparation process.Even if the clues and stimuli occur at the same time,the participants will have an endogenous preparation process,and the degree of endogenous preparation efforts will be related to the consistency of the previous and the next trial,the lower the degree of consistency,the more effort required for the input.Therefore,the switch task requires more preparation effort,the late negative potential(LNP)component of the prefrontal activation is more negative;Second,the task sets inertial suppression process.Participants in order to ensure the correct rate of task execution that switch tasks and repetitive tasks will have the inhibition of the set of inertia of the task,inhibition of the process needs to invest in cognitive resources and inhibition of the impact of prompt information,pro mpt information more inhibition,the less cognitive resources you need to invest.Therefore,repetitive tasks require more cognitive resources,and the parietal activated N2 component is more negative;Third,task-set update process.When the clue stimulation appeared at the same time,the subjects searched for clues first,and made necessary scene updates according to the clues.In the switch task,the subjects need to extract the task settings that match the current task from the long-term memory,so more psychological resources need to be invested,and the parietal activated P3 b component is more positive;(4)The reason for the switch cost is may mainly the preparation of endogenous tasks and the updating of task-set.Experiment 2 explored the process of the voluntary task-switching.Using the voluntary task-switching paradigm and EEG techniques,a total of 25 participants were recruited,and 24 valid experimental data were collected.Through behavioral data and ERP data found that:(1)In the case where the individual can choose the task voluntarily,there is a choice preference.Subjects are more inclined to choose relatively simple tasks,indicating that the individual's voluntary selection process is a top-down process;(2)In the voluntary task-switching,the response time and error rate of repeated tasks are significantly lower than the response time and error rate of the switch tasks.The results show that there is still a switch cost,confirming that the voluntary task-switching is important for us to perform research execution control function;(3)The voluntary task-switching is also controlled by prefrontal and parietal cortex,and the left central parietal plays a leading role;(4)The difference between the switch tasks and the repetitive tasks of the voluntary task-switching is reflected in the three processes: First,the endogenous preparation process,there is still an endogenous preparation process in the proce ss of autonomous task switch,but contrary to the result of the exogenous clue-driven task-switching,this may be due to the fact that participants were influenced by the requirements in the experiment and were more cautious in performing the repeated tasks,more preparation work,the prefrontal activated the late negative potential(LNP)component is more negative;Second,Voluntarily selecting the task-set process.In this process,the individual has to decide on his own initiative to perform the task.This process is closely related to the left central parietal cortex.Because it is more difficult to choose the switch task,more cognitive resources are needed,the left central parietal cortex activated N2 component is more negative.Third,the task sets inertia suppression process.In this process,switch tasks and repetitive tasks both generate inertial suppression for the previous task,which is consistent with the task switch results induced by exogenous cues,indicating that the inhibition process is not affected by endogenous purpose.Because the left central parietal lobe(CP5)participates in the suppression of task setting and more cognitive resources are invested in the conversion task,but the individual's cognitive resources are limited,there are more cognitive resources invested in the task switch of the left central parietal,so the investment in cognitive resources in the parietal will be relatively reduced,thus making it necessary to invest more cognitive resources in this process during repeated tasks,the parietal cortex activated N2 component is more negative;(5)In the process of voluntary task-switching,the main reason for the switch cost may is the voluntarily selecting the task-set process;The above results show that the voluntary task-switching and exogenous clue-driven task-switching are controlled by the prefrontal and parietal cortex,but the process of cognitive processing and switch cost are different.The differences in cognitive process mainly come from three aspects: First,the voluntary task-switching includes the voluntarily selecting the task-set process,while the exogenous clue-driven task-switching does not include this process;Second,the voluntary task-switching induced in the task-set update process,the switch task requires more cognitive resources to be invested,and in the voluntary task-switching,due to the influence of individual autonomy,there is no significant difference is memory retrieval between the switch tasks and the repetitive tasks.The difference in the switch cost: the switch cost of the voluntary task-switching may only originates from voluntarily selecting the task-set process,and the switch cost of the exogenous clue-driven task-switching may is derived from the processes of endogenous preparation process and task-set update process.