Submission 478
Multilevel Dynamics of Cognitive Control Style: Interactions Between Trial Feedback, Task Context, and Individual Differences
Posterwall-28
Presented by: Astrid Prochnow
Metacontrol describes the regulation of cognitive control along a continuum between flexible and persistent cognitive control styles. Within this framework, the cognitive control style can change on multiple timescales: rapidly from trial to trial, across intermediate task contexts, and as relatively stable individual tendencies. Previous work using a flanker task with embedded reaction-time feedback has shown that trial-specific feedback influences performance on the subsequent trial and that individuals differ in how they prepare for upcoming trials depending on feedback in the previous trial at the neurophysiological level. However, it is still unclear how experimentally induced control contexts interact with these short-timescale and interindividual effects. In the present study, we investigated how block-level manipulations of control demands influence cognitive control style and its trial-by-trial adjustments. Participants performed a flanker task with reaction-time feedback across blocks that differed with regard to their congruency proportion. Blocks with mostly congruent trials were designed to induce a more flexible control style, whereas blocks with mostly incongruent trials were designed to promote a more persistent style. This approach allows us to examine how immediate feedback-driven adjustments unfold within broader control contexts and how these patterns vary between individuals. Preliminary results suggest that the expression of trial-by-trial adjustments depends systematically on block context, with indications of reduced adjustments under persistence-promoting conditions. Taken together, the findings support the view that cognitive control styles are shaped concurrently by momentary feedback, intermediate task structure, and interindividual differences.