Delay knowledge and trial set count modulate use of proactive versus reactive control: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

The AX-continuous performance task (AX-CPT) and dot pattern expectancy (DPX) are the predominant cognitive paradigms used to assess the relative utilization of proactive versus reactive cognitive control. Experimental parameters vary widely between studies and systematically between different modalities (i.e., fMRI vs. EEG) with unknown consequences for the implementation of control. This meta-analytic review systematically surveyed these bodies of literature (k = 43, 73 data points) to resolve how cue-probe delay knowledge, delay length, and trial set count modulate the preferential use of proactive versus reactive control. In healthy young adults, delay knowledge and increasing trial set count each bias participants toward greater proactive control. Further, the interaction of delay knowledge and trial set count accounts for ~40% of variability in proactive/reactive control performance. As trial count varies reliably between experimental modalities, it is critical to understand how these parameters activate distinct cognitive processes and tap into different neural mechanisms for control. Subgroup analyses revealed important distinctions from our results in healthy young adults. Healthy, slightly older adults (ages 30-45 years) performed more reactively compared to healthy young adults. In addition, participants with schizophrenia showed evidence of more proactive control as trial set count increased. In light of this meta-analytic review, we conclude that delay knowledge and trial set length are important parameters to account for in the assessment of proactive versus reactive control. More broadly, this metaregression provides strong evidence that cognitive control becomes more reactive when timing demands are not known, and that both healthy persons and persons with schizophrenia shift toward proactive control with increasing repetitions of a task set.

Immediate versus delayed control demands elicit distinct mechanisms for instantiating proactive control

“…First, both studies used assessed two cue-probe delay lengths: 1,000 ms and 3,000 ± 500 ms. Although a 1,000-ms cue-probe delay is commonly used in AX-CPT and DPX studies, the next most common delay frequency in the published literature is between 4,500 and 6,000 ms (Janowich & Cavanagh, 2018). It is unclear whether delay-related differences in control instantiation would change significantly with an increase in delay from 3 to 5 seconds, for example.…”

“…Accordingly, researchers must preemptively weigh whether short and/or long delays best tax the cognitive constructs under consideration. Compounding this issue, fMRI studies tend to use long delays to facilitate the hemodynamic response function, whereas behavioral and EEG studies tend to use shorter delays (Janowich & Cavanagh, 2018). This pattern of differences in delay parameters suggests that there is a previously unappreciated problem generalizing findings between these techniques.…”

“…This is an important idea, because the AX-CPT and DPX paradigms have been run in healthy and patient populations, with delay length often treated as a trivial parameter. Cue-probe delay length varies widely between studies in the AX-CPT/DPX literature, with mixed behavioral (for a meta-analytic review, see Janowich & Cavanagh, 2018) and neural findings. Because the literature fails to substantively address the role of delay in proactive control processes, we set forth to examine empirically the behavioral consequences and neural manifestations of temporal delay.…”

Frontal midline theta differentiates separate cognitive control strategies while still generalizing the need for cognitive control

“…While cognitive control processes are thought to rely on a core set of brain mechanisms 10 , a comparison of brain activity giving rise to each of these fundamentally different cognitive control strategies has yet to be completed. Several studies have compared neural activation during different tasks (Go/Nogo vs. Stop-Signal 11 ; AX-Continuous Performance Task versus Dot Pattern Expectancy 12 ), but these comparisons were limited to tasks enacting the same control strategy (inhibitory control and proactive/reactive control, respectively). Several other studies 13 , 14 have examined neural signatures of cognitive control across multiple strategies.…”

Proactive and reactive control mechanisms in navigational search

“…Responses to AX trials (M AX = 1240, SD AX = 176) appeared faster than latencies for non-target trials (M AX = 1372, SD AX = 249; M BX = 1289, SD BX = 226; M BX = 1341, SD BY = 284) consistent with the strong expectancy established for the AX targets. Critically, a planned comparison of latencies for the AX-AY contrast favoured longer latencies for the AY trials; t AX-AX (43) = 4.2, p < .001, d = .63, that implicated interference from proactive control, despite the need to engage reactive control for successful resolution of late-stage conflict between the AX expectancy and the Y probe (Braver et al, 2009;Janowich & Cavanagh, 2018). Similarly, for the BX trials, the B cue invokes proactive control for the preparation of a non-target response, but where the late-onset of the X-probe creates conflict, and therefore interference from reactive control induces more error and slower latencies relative to AX and BY trials.…”