Multi-modal Generality for Hierarchical Organization of Cognitive Control

Abstract

Cognitive control is a process that enables humans to behave adaptively depending on current goals. The architecture of cognitive control has been specifically investigated in the concept of hierarchy. Researchers have examined the processing of hierarchical structures using visual information only. However, parsing multisensory information is also possible in the process of cognitive control, and it still remains unclear how the hierarchy of cognitive control is processed with multisensory information. Here, we hypothesized that the hierarchy of cognitive control would be processed in the same way regardless of sensory modality of information-be it visual or multisensory. To address this question, we designed two behavioral experiments using visual and auditory stimuli, and adopted cued-trial switching paradigm where each cue signaled the task to be performed: ① Auditory cue-Visual target (A-V) experiment and ② Visual cue-Auditory target (V-A) experiment. The experiment consisted of three subordinate-experiments comprised of three levels of hierarchy (Response, Feature and Dimension), with varying levels of complexity defined as the number of alternatives (one, two, and four). Participants were asked to press buttons following the set of cue-relevant mappings. In results, accuracy data showed main effects in both level of complexity and hierarchy in both experiments (less accurate as the level of complexity and hierarchy increase). With respect to reaction times, we could also find main effects in both level of complexity and hierarchy. A significant interaction was observed in both experiments. Taken together, results showed that, in both A-V and V-A experiments, participants’ performance worsened with longer reaction times as the level of hierarchy and complexity increased. In conclusion, we suggest that hierarchy of cognitive control is constructed independent of sensory modality of information.