Disentangling the Respective Contribution of Task Selection and Task Execution to Self-Directed Cognitive Control Development

Frick, Aurélien; Brandimonte, Maria A.; Chevalier, Nicolas · 2020 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13479

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Summary

This study investigates the developmental trajectories of task selection and task execution, two distinct components of cognitive control, in children aged 4 to 11. While previous research established that these processes are separable in adults, it remained unclear whether this dissociation holds during childhood and how each process contributes to performance costs, specifically mixing costs (performance drop in mixed-task blocks) and switch costs (performance drop when switching tasks). The researchers aimed to disentangle these contributions and examine how "self-directedness"—the extent to which task rules are externally provided versus internally inferred—affects their development. To address these questions, the authors employed the double registration procedure within an alternating-runs task-switching paradigm. This method temporally separates task selection from task execution by requiring participants to make two responses per trial: first selecting the relevant task goal (e.g., choosing between sorting by color or shape) and then executing the corresponding action. The study included 180 children divided into three age groups: 4–5 years, 7–8 years, and 10–11 years. Self-directedness demands were manipulated by assigning participants to either a "rule instruction" condition, where the alternating sequence was explicitly taught (low self-directedness), or a "no rule instruction" condition, where children had to infer the sequence from feedback (high self-directedness). The results demonstrated that task selection and task execution are indeed dissociable processes in childhood, contributing differently to performance costs. Task selection yielded significant mixing costs, particularly in younger children, indicating that the uncertainty of maintaining task sets in mixed blocks primarily burdens the selection process. In contrast, task execution primarily yielded switch costs across all age groups, suggesting that the difficulty of reorienting attention and inhibiting previous responses drives the cost of switching. Furthermore, both processes were sensitive to self-directedness demands; performance was significantly worse in the high self-directedness condition, especially for task selection. However, the impact of self-directedness on task selection decreased with age, whereas its effect on task execution remained more consistent, implying that while children become better at inferring rules, the execution of those rules remains a stable cognitive demand. These findings provide critical evidence that task selection and task execution develop along distinct trajectories and contribute uniquely to cognitive control efficiency. The study confirms that mixing costs are largely driven by the challenges of task selection under uncertainty, while switch costs reflect the demands of task execution. Additionally, the results highlight that self-directed control is a complex skill involving both the ability to infer rules (selection) and the capacity to implement them (execution). This dissociation suggests that interventions aimed at improving cognitive control in children should consider targeting these processes separately, particularly focusing on scaffolding task selection strategies for younger children who struggle most with self-directed rule inference.

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Topics

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• executive function
• task switching