Minimal impact of consolidation on learned switch-readiness

Adaptive behavior is characterized by our ability to create, maintain, and update (or switch) rules by which we categorize and respond to stimuli across changing contexts (cognitive flexibility). Recent research suggests that people can link the control process of task-switching to contextual cues through associative learning, whereby the behavioral cost of switching is reduced for contexts that require frequent switching. One example is the listwide proportion switch (LWPS) effect, denoting smaller switch costs in blocks of trials where switching is more frequent. However, the conditions that govern such learned cognitive flexibility are poorly understood. One major unanswered question is whether this type of learning benefits from memory consolidation effects. To address this question, we manipulated whether task-sets and/or specific task stimuli were more frequently linked with task-switching (vs. repeating), and ran participants over two experimental sessions, separated by a 24-hr delay. We expected that consolidation would facilitate learned cognitive flexibility, resulting in a greater reduction of switch costs with increasing task-switch likelihood on Session 2 compared with Session 1. Across two experiments, we observed robust LWPS effects in both sessions. However, we found little evidence for effects of consolidation on learned cognitive flexibility: The magnitude of the LWPS effect did not change from Session 1 to 2. Altogether our results suggest that people reliably and quickly acquire task-set and stimulus-based switch associations, but this form of control learning-unlike many instances of reward-based learning-does not benefit from long-term memory consolidation. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).