Poster #17 - Using the Voluntary Task-Switching Paradigm to Infer Avoidance of Cognitive Control Demands Across Development

• In Event: Poster Session 03

Abstract

Adults and older children are sensitive to and typically avoid cognitive control demands, as evidenced by their preference for easier over more difficult cognitive control tasks. Children younger than 7 years, in comparison, are less sensitive to cognitive control demands and do not systematically avoid hard control tasks (Niebaum & Munakata, 2021). Assessments of cognitive demand avoidance, particularly in children, have used a narrow range of paradigms, limiting the generalizability of findings. In three independent studies, we assessed cognitive demand avoidance by analyzing behavioral changes across different voluntary task-switching paradigms, in which participants chose when and how often they switched between two different task options across series of trials. Switching between different tasks places demands on cognitive control, even when people choose when to switch. To assess cognitive demand avoidance, we examined whether children and adults increasingly avoided voluntarily switching tasks across time.

In Study 1, adults switched tasks less frequently as the task progressed (B=-0.071, z=-2.705, p=.007) (Mittelstädt et al., 2018). Switch frequency also varied due to experimental counterbalancing: Adults who had completed a separate task-switching task paradigm first due to counterbalancing also switched tasks less often overall than participants who completed the standard voluntary task switching paradigm first (B=0.07, t=2.285, p=.026). Thus, adults increasingly avoided task switching demands across time. In Study 2, children aged 7 to 12 years switched tasks less frequently as the task progressed (B=-0.075, t=-4.344, p<.001), specifically to increasingly avoid switching to the more difficult task option (trial number x task option interaction: B=0.152, t=4.428, p<.001; Figure 1), consistent with evidence of older children avoiding cognitive demands (de Bruin et al., 2018). In Study 3, switch frequency did not significantly vary as the task progressed in adults, 10-year-olds, or 5-year-olds, potentially because fewer trials were included (160 trials compared with >360 trials in other paradigms) (Frick et al., 2019). However, switch frequency tended to vary due to counterbalancing: Adults and 10-year-olds tended to switch less often overall on easier trials (i.e., more time to select which task to perform) after completing blocks of more difficult trials first (i.e., less time to select which task), whereas younger children did not (linear age group x counterbalance order interaction: B=0.063, t=1.850, p=.067; Figure 2), which is consistent with increased avoidance of cognitive demands in older children and adults. Across all studies, children and adults maintained or improved their task performance, indicating that the decrease in voluntary switching was not due to disengagement.

Collectively, we found evidence that adults and older children increasingly avoided the cognitive demands associated with switching tasks, providing support for prior claims of cognitive demand avoidance in older children and adults in a new paradigm. Our findings showing that participants’ choices systematically changed across voluntary task switching paradigms indicate a potential source of meaningful variation with which to explain individual and group differences in cognition. Lastly, our findings caution against counterbalancing task conditions that vary in difficulty in cognitive paradigms in which participants decisions are the primary outcome.

Authors

• Jesse Niebaum, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Aurélien Frick, Université de Liège, Belgium

• Yuko Munakata, University of California - Davis