Forschung am Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Angewandte Psychologie

A central question in cognitive psychology is how mental representations influence behavior, particularly when individuals navigate the everyday challenges of managing multiple tasks. Early task-switching research introduced the concept of a “task set” and largely focused on the mechanisms involved in switching tasks (e.g., Allport et al., 1995; Rogers & Monsell, 1995). However, these studies provided limited insights into how tasks are mentally represented and, conversely, how task representations influence task-switching behavior. Others (e.g., Dreisbach, 2012; Gilbert & Shallice, 2002; Herd et al., 2014; Musslick & Cohen, 2021) have suggested that the way in which tasks are represented critically influences our ability to switch between tasks. Yet relatively little is known about how these representations emerge and how they shape our willingness to change tasks. In this project, we aim to close this gap by combining behavioral experiments with neural network modeling. This project investigates how task representations emerge and how they affect task choice. Additionally, we will examine how task representations, once established, are updated or modified in response to new stimuli that violate the established representation Finally, we will explore how task representations are individually formed based on prior similarity judgments of stimuli. Each behavioral experiment will be complemented by computational simulations of a connectionist model, offering mechanistic accounts of how different patterns of behavior emerge from varying representations of stimuli and tasks. Taken together this project aims to elucidate the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying the relationship between task representations and task switching behavior, providing new insights into how people flexibly adapt to changing task demands and choose between tasks.

PI - Projekt 1 (behavioral studies): Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: N.N. (Univsersity of Regensburg)

PI - Projekt 2 (computational modeling): Prof. Dr. Sebastian Musslick (University of Osnabrück) (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)
Ph.D. student: N.N. (Univsersity of Osnabrück)

The ability to balance cognitive flexibility and stability is crucial for human adaptive behavior in constantly changing environments. However, there is a lack of consensus on the mechanisms that underlie both faculties. This lack of integration is a significant obstacle to comprehending the regulation of cognitive flexibility and stability in human cognition, such as understanding whether flexibility and stability are regulated independently or whether they need to be traded off against each other via shared mechanisms. Thus, a more mechanistic understanding is needed to advance our current understanding of cognitive flexibility and stability, and, ultimately, to devising effective interventions to enhance both faculties. With this grant proposal, we seek to obtain a more integrative understanding of the mechanisms underlying the regulation of cognitive flexibility and stability. Specifically, we seek to address recent conflicting results that (a) suggest that cognitive flexibility and stability trade off against each other versus (b) that they are regulated independently (Egner, 2023; Mayr & Grätz, 2024). The theoretical account probed in this work is capable of reconcealing these two differing perspectives, suggesting that cognitive flexibility and stability can be both dependent and independent: Cognitive flexibility and stability trade off within a level of information processing (e.g., the processing of task sets) but can be regulated independently across levels of information processing (e.g., the processing of task sets versus the processing of response sets).

PI - Projekt 1: Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Andrea Janker (Univsersity of Regensburg)

PI - Projekt 2: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Musslick (University of Osnabrück) (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Alessandra Brondetta (University of Osnabrück) (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)

Adaptive control forms the basis of cognitive and behavioral flexibility. It is sensitive to normal aging and its malfunction is closely related to neurological and psychiatric conditions. In general, human beings have the astonishing ability to flexibly adapt action and thought in response to changing requirements from the environment. At the same time, they can be surprisingly stuck in set, for example when they continue using a formerly successful but no longer adaptive processing strategy. Such stuck-in-set phenomena, originally reported in problem solving tasks (Luchins, 1942) are not restricted to neuropsychological abnormalities like perseveration in frontal lobe patients but have recently also been reported for control strategies in context processing- and response conflict-tasks in healthy individuals (e.g., Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, & Risko, 2013; Hefer & Dreisbach, 2017). In this research project, we intend to investigate two so far highly neglected phenomena that expose a weakness of the much-vaunted cognitive flexibility: (1) The asymmetrical costs when switching between a shielded and a more relaxed mode of control, which show that it can be harder to let go from a shielding control mode and switch to a more relaxed control mode than vice versa.  And (2) the observation that the flexibility to adapt control to different context demands is further limited by the volatility and frequency of context changes. The importance of adaptive control for cognitive and behavioral flexibility highlights the need for understanding the underlying cognitive mechanisms (e.g., the flexible (dis)engagement of different control states), which may offer fertile grounds for subsequent translational research.

PI - Projekt 1: Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Kathrin Treittinger (University of Regensburg)

PI - Projekt 2: Prof. Dr. Rico Fischer (University of Greifswald) (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)
Ph.D. student: M.A. Shu Yang (University of Greifswald) (externer Link, öffnet neues Fenster)