SeminarRecording AvailableCognition

Principles of Cognitive Control over Task Focus and Task

Schedule
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
15:00 UTC
Tobias Egner

Professor

Duke University, USA

Watch recording
Host: British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience BACN

Recording

Event Information

Recording

Available

Host

British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience BACN

Duration

45 minutes

Abstract

2024 BACN Mid-Career Prize Lecture Adaptive behavior requires the ability to focus on a current task and protect it from distraction (cognitive stability), and to rapidly switch tasks when circumstances change (cognitive flexibility). How people control task focus and switch-readiness has therefore been the target of burgeoning research literatures. Here, I review and integrate these literatures to derive a cognitive architecture and functional rules underlying the regulation of stability and flexibility. I propose that task focus and switch-readiness are supported by independent mechanisms whose strategic regulation is nevertheless governed by shared principles: both stability and flexibility are matched to anticipated challenges via an incremental, online learner that nudges control up or down based on the recent history of task demands (a recency heuristic), as well as via episodic reinstatement when the current context matches a past experience (a recognition heuristic).

Topics

attentioncognitionepisodic reinstatementexecutive functionsfunctional rulesrecency heuristicswitch-readinesstask controltask demandstask focus

Related Seminars

Seminar

Changing Perspectives on Self Control

Yuko Munakata presents evidence challenging capacity-only accounts of self-control and explains how experience, effort, and expected payoff shape executive-function engagement and later outcomes.

Upcoming · Sep 9, 2026
Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT

Related Job Opportunities

Job

PhD Studentship: Mitochondrial Metabolism and Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) (Fixed Term)

Supervisors: Professor Andrew Murray, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge Dr Ross Lindsay, Novo Nordisk Funding: Fully funded PhD studentship (Home/UK…

Posted Aug 10, 2026
Job

Research Associate (Fixed Term)

We seek a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate to join the laboratory of Professor Kathy Niakan. We are based in the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research (LCTR), in the Department of…

Posted Aug 11, 2026
Job

Research Assistant/Associate (Fixed Term)

Applications are invited for a postdoctoral research associate position to study the neural mechanisms of visual learning in mice, in the laboratories of Professor Ole Paulsen and Dr Jasper Poort…

Posted Aug 11, 2026

We use essential cookies to run the site. Analytics cookies are optional and help us improve World Wide. Learn more.