Control transition between cued and voluntary choice tasks: Effects on cognitive flexibility

Cognitive flexibility is commonly studied using the cued and voluntary task-switching paradigms. Given that the cued task contains more exogenous control processes, and the voluntary choice task includes more endogenous control processes, some control transitions between the cued and voluntary choice trials could exist. However, the transitions between the cued and voluntary choice tasks have been largely ignored by prior works. Thus, to fill this gap in the literature, we used a hybrid task-switching paradigm by mixing a cued task with a voluntary task to probe control transitions. We conducted two experiments; each comprised of trials that were grouped into four types of control transitions (i.e., voluntary → cued, voluntary → voluntary, cued → voluntary, and cued → cued). We found a cost associated with control switch and that the control switch possibly facilitated cognitive flexibility, as indicated by the impaired task switch cost and increased voluntary switch rate compared with the control repeat. In addition, we found an asymmetrical control cost between the transition of cued and voluntary choice tasks, with a larger control cost when switching from a difficult to an easier control mode. We also found that the task repeat and task switch trials had an opposite, asymmetrical control cost pattern and were differently modulated by switch probability. Therefore, the findings of the present study broaden our understanding of cognitive flexibility and provide new insights into its underlying mechanisms.