Adaptive control and the avoidance of cognitive control demands across development

Abstract

Young adults adaptively coordinate their behavior to avoid demands placed on cognitive control. We investigated how this adaptive coordination develops by having 6-7- and 11-12-year-olds and young adults complete a demand selection task, in which participants could select between two tasks that varied in cognitive control demands via differences in rule switch frequency. Adults and older children exhibited significant preference for selecting the less demanding task, as well as a metacognitive signal guiding adaptive demand avoidance behavior across a variety of behavioral and self-report assessments. In contrast, despite evidence of differential demands on cognitive control, younger children did not coordinate their task selections to avoid higher demand. Together, these findings suggest that sensitivity and adaptive responses to control demands emerge with development and are consistent with gradual development of lateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and their functional connectivity, which support effort avoidance in adults.

Cognitive resource limitations shift effort trade-offs across the lifespan

“…In this study, we argue that this balancing was reflected by sensitivity to the opportunity cost of time, whereby older adults engaged in cognitive effort when it was most rewarding when the average reward rate was high. In this way, our findings join a spate of recent work that suggests that people can adaptively change behaviour to overcome age-related cognitive limitations if properly incentivised to do so (Ferdinand & Czernochowski, 2018;Yee et al, 2019;Patzelt et al, 2019;Harsay et al, 2010;Gatzke-Kopp, 2018;Chevalier, 2015;Niebaum et al, 2019;Fischer et al, 2018). We extend this work by suggesting a potential computational mechanism that older adults (and possibly children) use to strategically adapt to cognitive control demands in their environment: the opportunity cost of time.…”

“…In this framework, when someone is faced with two tasks, one that requires more cognitive effort to complete and one that requires less effort, the more difficult task would be avoided and the less demanding task would be favoured (Kool et al, 2010;. This tendency to avoid cognitive effort expenditure has been shown to influence behaviour not only for young adults, but for children and older adults as well (Chevalier, 2018;Niebaum et al, 2019;Westbrook et al, 2013;Hess & Ennis, 2012). Thus, from the perspective of effort avoidance, it could be argued that children and older adults differ from younger adults not only in their capacity for cognitive control, but also in how they balance the effort of engaging in control against its potential benefits.…”

Encouraging performance monitoring promotes proactive control in children

“…Yet inefficient performance monitoring is likely not the only factor contributing to suboptimal control engagement; the emergence of metacognition may also be critical for mature control strategies. Recent findings suggest that children fail to use variations in task demands to modulate engagement of control and related cognitive effort (Niebaum, Chevalier, Guild, & Munakata, ; O'Leary & Sloutsky, ). For instance, although children can distinguish between easy and difficult tasks, they do not use this information to appropriately allocate more cognitive effort to the difficult tasks until later in childhood (e.g.…”

Developing Adaptive Control: Age-related Differences in Task Choices and Awareness of Proactive and Reactive Control Demands

“…Additional research should investigate whether individuals monitor different signals of demand at different ages and how these signals influence task decisions and lead to potential benefits across development. Young children may be less likely to utilize signals of cognitive demands for guiding behavior relative to adults (Niebaum et al, 2019;O'Leary & Sloutsky, 2017); they may prioritize other signals such as novelty and interest when making task selections, which may benefit their learning. Understanding of cognitive development may thus be advanced by incorporating considerations of how and when children attend to signals of control demand, the different contexts in which children decide to engage control, and how these factors influence children's choices and outcomes.…”