TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring the link between novel task proceduralization and motor simulation
AU - Palenciano, Ana F.
AU - González-García, Carlos
AU - De Houwer, Jan
AU - Brass, Marcel
AU - Liefooghe, Baptist
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grant G00951N of the Flemish Government attributed to Baptist Liefooghe and Jan de Houwer.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s).
PY - 2021/9/27
Y1 - 2021/9/27
N2 - Our ability to generate efficient behavior from novel instructions is critical for our adaptation to changing environments. Despite the absence of previous experience, novel instructed content is quickly encoded into an action-based or procedural format, facilitating automatic task processing. In the current work, we investigated the link between proceduralization and motor simulation, specifically, whether the covert activation of the task-relevant responses is used during the assembly of action-based instructions representations. Across three online experiments, we used a concurrent finger-tapping task to block motor simulation during the encoding of novel stimulus-response (S-R) associations. The overlap between the mappings and the motor task at the response level was manipulated. We predicted a greater impairment at mapping implementation in the overlapping condition, where the mappings' relevant response representations were already loaded by the motor demands, and thus, could not be used in the upcoming task simulation. This hypothesis was robustly supported by the three datasets. Nonetheless, the overlapping effect was not modulated by further manipulations of proceduralization-related variables (preparation demands in Exp.2, mapping novelty in Exp.3). Importantly, a fourth control experiment ruled out that our results were driven by alternative accounts as fatigue or negative priming. Overall, we provided strong evidence towards the involvement of motor simulation during anticipatory task reconfiguration. However, this involvement was rather general, and not restricted to novelty scenarios. Finally, these findings can be also integrated into broader models of anticipatory task control, stressing the role of the motor system during preparation.
AB - Our ability to generate efficient behavior from novel instructions is critical for our adaptation to changing environments. Despite the absence of previous experience, novel instructed content is quickly encoded into an action-based or procedural format, facilitating automatic task processing. In the current work, we investigated the link between proceduralization and motor simulation, specifically, whether the covert activation of the task-relevant responses is used during the assembly of action-based instructions representations. Across three online experiments, we used a concurrent finger-tapping task to block motor simulation during the encoding of novel stimulus-response (S-R) associations. The overlap between the mappings and the motor task at the response level was manipulated. We predicted a greater impairment at mapping implementation in the overlapping condition, where the mappings' relevant response representations were already loaded by the motor demands, and thus, could not be used in the upcoming task simulation. This hypothesis was robustly supported by the three datasets. Nonetheless, the overlapping effect was not modulated by further manipulations of proceduralization-related variables (preparation demands in Exp.2, mapping novelty in Exp.3). Importantly, a fourth control experiment ruled out that our results were driven by alternative accounts as fatigue or negative priming. Overall, we provided strong evidence towards the involvement of motor simulation during anticipatory task reconfiguration. However, this involvement was rather general, and not restricted to novelty scenarios. Finally, these findings can be also integrated into broader models of anticipatory task control, stressing the role of the motor system during preparation.
KW - Action
KW - Cognitive Control
KW - Learning
KW - Working memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85117081854&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5334/joc.190
DO - 10.5334/joc.190
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85117081854
SN - 2514-4820
VL - 4
SP - 1
EP - 20
JO - Journal of Cognition
JF - Journal of Cognition
IS - 1
M1 - 57
ER -