The Effects of Reinforcing Task Alternations on Voluntary Task Selection
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Summary
This study investigates whether the regulation of cognitive flexibility and stability is guided by reinforcement learning. Specifically, the authors tested if selectively reinforcing task switches or repetitions leads to corresponding changes in voluntary task selection on unrewarded trials. The research addresses a gap in understanding how meta-control processes are regulated, building on prior work that used blocked designs and "coin flip" instructions, which may not reflect spontaneous voluntary switching. The researchers conducted two experiments using a task-switching paradigm with a double registration procedure, where participants activated a task cue before seeing the target stimulus. In Experiment 1 (n=97), participants performed cued trials interspersed with free-choice trials. One group received higher rewards for task switches, while the other received higher rewards for repetitions. In Experiment 2 (n=58), the design was identical, but participants were explicitly informed of their reward contingency. Data were analyzed using Bayesian mixed-effects models to assess voluntary switch rates, reaction times, and accuracy. In Experiment 1, selective reinforcement did not significantly affect voluntary switch rates; participants in both groups switched at similar rates (~45%). Instead, task choices were predominantly driven by task preference, with a strong bias toward the easier "animacy" task over the more difficult "size" task. This preference correlated with performance costs, suggesting that avoidance of task difficulty dominated over switch avoidance. In Experiment 2, informing participants of the reinforcement schedule induced the hypothesized effects: those aware of being rewarded for switching showed increased switching on free-choice trials, while those rewarded for repeating showed increased repetition. Additionally, the switch-reward group in Experiment 1 showed improved accuracy on the difficult size task, potentially due to increased engagement from perceived reinforcement of difficulty. The findings suggest that people do not automatically learn to adjust cognitive flexibility based on reward history alone in this paradigm. However, they can adapt their control strategies if they are aware of the benefits of specific selection strategies, even when rewards are no longer present. The study highlights that in interspersed designs without explicit instructions to randomize choices, task difficulty is a stronger driver of voluntary selection than switch costs. These results provide insight into higher-order control processes, indicating that awareness of contingencies is crucial for the reinforcement of cognitive flexibility and stability.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| archive | success | openalex | — | — | 5 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-25 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-18 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-25; verification: verified.
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