The theory of event coding (TEC) is a general framework explaining how perceived and produced events (stimuli and responses) are cognitively represented and how their representations interact to generate perception and action. This article discusses the implications of TEC for understanding the control of voluntary action and makes an attempt to apply, specify, and concretize the basic theoretical ideas in the light of the available research on action control. In particular, it is argued that the major control operations may take place long before a stimulus is encountered (the prepared-reflex principle), that stimulus-response translation may be more automatic than commonly thought, that action selection and execution are more interwoven than most approaches allow, and that the acquisition of action-contingent events (action effects) is likely to subserve both the selection and the evaluation of actions.

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Action control according to TEC (theory of event coding)

Starting from the premise that working memory is a system for providing access to representations for complex cognition, six requirements for a working memory system are delineated: (1) maintaining structural representations by
dynamic bindings, (2) manipulating structural representations, (3) flexible reconfiguration, (4) partial decoupling from long-term memory, (5) controlled
retrieval from long-term memory, and (6) encoding of new structures into longterm memory. The chapter proposes an architecture for a system that meets these requirements. The working memory system consists of a declarative and
a procedural part, each of which has three embedded components: the activated part of long-term memory, a component for creating new structural representations by dynamic bindings (the ‘‘region of direct access’’ for declarative working memory, and the ‘‘bridge’’ for procedural working memory), and a mechanism for selecting a single element (‘‘focus of attention’’ for declarative
working memory, and ‘‘response focus’’ for procedural working memory).
The architecture affords two modes of information processing, an analytical and an associative mode. This distinction provides a theoretically founded formulation of a dual-process theory of reasoning.

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Design for a working memory.

The quarterly journal of experimental psychology

The human ability to flexibly adapt to novel cir- cumstances is extraordinary. Perhaps the most illustrative, yet underappreciated, form of this cognitive flexibility is rapid instructed task learning (RITL)—the ability to rapidly reconfigure our minds to perform new tasks from instruc- tions. This ability is important for everyday life (e.g., learn- ing to use new technologies) and is used to instruct participants in nearly every study of human cognition. We review the development of RITL as a circumscribed domain of cognitive neuroscience investigation, culminating in re- cent demonstrations that RITL is implemented via brain circuits centered on lateral prefrontal cortex. We then build on this and the recent discovery of compositional represen- tations within lateral prefrontal cortex to develop an integra- tive theory of cognitive flexibility and cognitive control that identifies mechanisms that may enable RITL within the human brain. The insights gained from this new theoretical account have important implications for further develop- ments and applications of RITL research.

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Rapid instructed task learning: a new window into the human brain's unique capacity for flexible cognitive control.

https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/pdf/S1364-6613(14)00076-X.pdf

Stimulus–response bindings in priming

The prepared reflex (PR) metaphor (Woodworth, R. S. (1938). Experimental psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston) suggests that stimulus-response (S-R) instructions held in working memory (WM) can lead to autonomous response activation even without any practice. Cohen-Kdoshay and Meiran (Cohen-Kdoshay, O., & Meiran, N. (2007). The representation of instructions in working memory leads to autonomous response activation: Evidence from the first trials in the flanker paradigm. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60 (8), 1140-1154) showed that the flanker compatibility effect (FCE) is found in the eight trials following S-R instructions supporting the PR hypothesis. Nonetheless, performance in the first trials forms long-term memory (LTM) traces which link abstract categories with responses and the retrieval of these LTM traces may be the reason for the autonomous response activation seen in the FCE. This account predicts FCEs to be absent in the first trial and present afterwards. The authors show that the FCE was present in the first trial immediately following the instructions, thus providing unequivocal support for the PR metaphor.

The representation of instructions operates like a prepared reflex: flanker compatibility effects found in first trial following S-R instructions.

The authors examined whether instructions can lead to autonomous response activation even without practice. Eriksen and Eriksen's (1974) flanker compatibility paradigm was used to show that the flanker compatibility effect (FCE) is already present in the first trials following the stimulus-response instructions, before any of the stimuli have been repeated. This first-trials FCE was present even when participants were strongly motivated to ignore the flankers, and it disappeared under conditions of high working-memory (WM) load. The findings suggest that intention, formed by instructions, is involved in forming representations in WM that operate like a prepared reflex (Woodworth, 1938). The implications of the finding to intentionality and frontal lobe functions are discussed.

/pdf/the-representation-of-instructions-in-working-memory-leads-4siuh0hkmf.pdf

Oshrit Cohen-Kdoshay

Papers

The representation of instructions operates like a prepared reflex: flanker compatibility effects found in first trial following S-R instructions.

The representation of instructions in working memory leads to autonomous response activation: evidence from the first trials in the flanker paradigm.

Working memory load but not multitasking eliminates the prepared reflex: further evidence from the adapted flanker paradigm.