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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 25, 2025

The Attentional Set Shifting Task: A Measure of Cognitive Flexibility in Mice

The Attentional Set Shifting Task: A Measure of Cognitive Flexibility in Mice

Published on: February 4, 2015

The challenge of learning adaptive mental behavior.

Peter F Hitchcock¹, Michael J Frank²

¹Department of Psychology, Emory University.

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science

|May 30, 2024

Summary

Learning adaptive mental behaviors is harder than motor behaviors. This difficulty stems from impaired credit assignment, impacting how people learn the consequences of their actions, which affects retention.

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Last Updated: Jun 25, 2025

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Multimodal Protocol for Assessing Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Adults with Learning Difficulties

Multimodal Protocol for Assessing Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Adults with Learning Difficulties

Published on: September 27, 2020

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Behavioral Science
Neuroscience

Background:

Psychotherapies aim to modify maladaptive behaviors into adaptive ones.
The empirical understanding of learning adaptive mental behaviors remains limited.
Mental behaviors may present unique learning challenges compared to motor actions.

Purpose of the Study:

To empirically assess the difficulty of learning adaptive mental versus motor behaviors.
To investigate the role of credit assignment in learning mental actions.
To identify potential interventions for improving adaptive thinking.

Main Methods:

A novel task was designed to compare learning mental and motor actions with matched probabilistic feedback.
Two experiments involving 300 participants were conducted.
Computational modeling was used to analyze learning impairments and credit assignment.

Main Results:

Participants demonstrated greater difficulty learning to select optimal mental actions compared to motor actions.
Poorer accuracy was observed in both the learning and retention phases for mental actions.
Computational modeling indicated impaired credit assignment, specifically in constructing and maintaining expected values, for mental actions.

Conclusions:

Individuals experience significant challenges in learning adaptive mental behaviors.
Impaired credit assignment is a key factor contributing to difficulties in learning mental actions.
Findings suggest the need for interventions to support credit assignment and enhance adaptive cognition.