The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual-mechanisms framework

By Todd S. Braver. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2012

2,299 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A core component of cognitive control – the ability to regulate thoughts and actions in accordance with internally represented behavioral goals – might be its intrinsic variability. In this article, I describe the dual-mechanisms of control (DMC) framework, which postulates that this variability might arise from qualitative distinctions in temporal dynamics between proactive and reactive modes of control. Proactive control reflects the sustained and anticipatory maintenance of goal-relevant information within lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) to enable optimal cognitive performance, whereas reactive control reflects transient, stimulus-driven goal reactivation that recruits lateral PFC (plus a wider brain network) based on interference demands or episodic associations. I summarize recent research that demonstrates how the DMC framework provides a coherent explanation of three sources of cognitive control variation – intra-individual, inter-individual, and between-groups – in terms of proactive vs. reactive control biases.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5faddca857d64caa97de9238d285b89bbb598d9c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function (2021, methodology): “The goal maintenance/biasing perspective is incorporated into several other CC frameworks, such as the executive attention framework [172] and the dual mechanisms of CC framework [121].”
Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging (2014, background): “For example, the distinction between global and local executive control fits with recent work in the general executive control literature (Braver, 2012).”
Motivation and cognitive control: from behavior to neural mechanism. (2015, background): “(a) the impact of incentives on control function, (b) the role of motivational factors in the temporal dynamics of control, and (c) the inherent cost of cognitive control.”
Cognitive Control Predicts Use of Model-based Reinforcement Learning (2014, methodology): “As proactive control is characterized by its reliance on contextual information about the preceding cues (Braver, 2012) and a similar sort of higher-order representation (here, of the internal model) is required to carry out model-based choice, we believe that the Dual Mechanisms of Control theory p”
Neurophysiology of performance monitoring and adaptive behavior. (2014, background): “Several psychological classifications for action control mechanisms have been suggested (52, 436), converging on the notion that there may be reactive control induced by unexpected events (e.”
Metacognitive processes in the self-regulation of performance in elite endurance runners (2015, background): “Alongside reactive control, evidence for proactive cognitive control (Braver, 2012) also emerged.”
Neural Coding of Cognitive Control: The Representational Similarity Analysis Approach. (2020, background): “For example, if increasing the frequency of incongruent trials drives subjects to adopt a mode of proactive control [77], a corresponding increase should be seen in the strength of rule coding.”
Annual Research Review: On the relations among self-regulation, self-control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk-taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology (2016, neutral): “Ignoring (inhibiting, suppressing, or de-activating) internal or external competing information to protect working memory or to focus attention on goal-relevant information; it is related to selective attention and attentional inhibition (Diamond, 2013) Proactive control: In the cognitive literature”
Dual mechanisms of cognitive control in bilinguals and monolinguals (2013, background): “These proposals are consistent with theoretical frameworks within the attention and executive control fields that suggest that proactive and reactive cognitive control are relatively independent and complementary so that successful cognition may depend upon some mixture of the 2 processes (Braver, 2”
Cognitive Network Neuroscience (2015, background): “The relatively global effects on network configuration during external modulation of attention contrast against the region-centered signatures identified in cognitive control studies (Cole, Laurent, & Stocco, 2013; Cole, Yarkoni, Repovs, Anticevic, & Braver, 2012; Dosenbach et al., 2007).”