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Are there control processes, and (if so) can they be studied?

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Abstract

Generally, so-called control processes are thought to be necessary when we must perform one out of several competing actions. Some examples include performance of a less well-practiced action instead of a well-practiced one (prepotency); learning a new action (novelty); and rapidly switching from one action to another (task-switching). While it certainly is difficult to perform the desired action in these circumstances, it is less clear that a separate set of processes (e.g., control processes) are necessary to explain the observed behavior. Another way to approach the study of control processes is to investigate physiological dependent measures (e.g., electrophysiological or neuroimaging measures). Although these offer another avenue of inquiry into control processes, they have yet to furnish unambiguous evidence that control processes exist. While this might suggest that there are no control processes, it is also possible that our methods are insufficiently sensitive to measure control processes. We have investigated this latter possibility using tasks that are neuroanatomically distinct, though within the same modality (vision). This approach did not yield evidence for a separable set of control processes. However, recent works using a task-switching paradigm in which subjects switch between a visual and an auditory task suggest that switching both task and modality may be importantly different than switching task within a given modality. This may represent a way forward in the study of control processes.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge The Kessler Foundation Research Center (GW and JS) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant #310030B_133136; MM) for the support they have provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kessler Foundation Research Center, West Orange, NJ, USA

    Glenn R. Wylie & James F. Sumowski

  2. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, UMDNJ, New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, USA

    Glenn R. Wylie & James F. Sumowski

  3. Department of Clinical Neurosciences, The Functional Electrical Neuroimaging Laboratory, Neuropsychology and Neurorehabilitation Service, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Micah Murray

  4. Radiology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Micah Murray

  5. EEG Brain Mapping Core, Center for Biomedical Imaging, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Micah Murray

  6. Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Foundation Research Center, 300 Executive Drive Suite 70, West Orange, NJ, 07052, USA

    Glenn R. Wylie

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  1. Glenn R. Wylie
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Correspondence to Glenn R. Wylie.

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Wylie, G.R., Sumowski, J.F. & Murray, M. Are there control processes, and (if so) can they be studied?. Psychological Research 75, 535–543 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0354-3

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