Meta-control: From psychology to computational neuroscience

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Research in the past decades shed light on the different mechanisms that underlie our capacity for cognitive control. However, the meta-level processes that regulate cognitive control itself remain poorly understood. Following the terminology from artificial intelligence, meta-control can be defined as a collection of mechanisms that (a) monitor the progress of controlled processing and (b) regulate the underlying control parameters in the service of current task goals and in response to internal or external constraints. From a psychological perspective, meta-control is an important concept because it may help explain and predict how and when human agents select different types of behavioral strategies. From a cognitive neuroscience viewpoint, meta-control is a useful concept for understanding the complex networks in the prefrontal cortex that guide higher-level behavior as well as their interactions with neuromodulatory systems (such as the dopamine or norepinephrine system). The purpose of the special issue is to integrate hitherto segregated strands of research across three different perspectives: 1) a psychological perspective that specifies meta-control processes on a functional level and aims to operationalize them in experimental tasks; 2) a computational perspective that builds on ideas from artificial intelligence to formalize normative solutions to meta-control problems; and 3) a cognitive neuroscience perspective that identifies neural correlates of and mechanisms underlying meta-control.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)447-452
Number of pages6
JournalCognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience
Volume21
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 34081267

Keywords

Keywords

  • Cognitive control, Cognitive neuroscience, Computational modeling, Meta-control, Psychology