Search bioRxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.05.05.652181

Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Flexibility and Interference Control in a Stroop Task Switching Paradigm

Tahamtan, Z.·Osia, S. A.·Herman, P. A.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Task-switching paradigms, often used to study cognitive flexibility, frequently employ incongruent bivalent stimuli, triggering two tasks and potentially conflating cognitive flexibility with interference control. This study assesses cognitive flexibility using univalent stimuli (triggering one task) and congruent bivalent stimuli (same response across tasks) in a modified Stroop task to investigate well-established neural activity correlates of cognitive flexibility, manifested in human (females and males) electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, while isolating switch process from the influence of interference control at the response level. In particular, we analyzed EEG theta-band activity and event-related potential (ERP) components in switch (N2, P3a, P3b, late sustained potential (LSP)) and interference (N400, LSP and mid-frontal theta activity) conditions. We compared each of the switch and the interference condition to the control condition using cluster-based permutation test. In the switch condition, we observed fronto-central N2, reduced frontal P3a, and a positive occipital LSP. The interference condition showed increased frontal theta, parietal N400, and a positive occipital LSP. We also compared switch and interference conditions using cluster-based permutation test. We observed a larger N2 in the frontocentral regions during the switch condition and higher frontal theta activity during the interference condition, which aligns with their comparisons to the control condition. This result suggests that distinct neural mechanisms are used for each of the processes involved in conflict monitoring. Specifically, the theta activity may reflect sustained monitoring and conflict resolution during interference, while the N2 may reflect more transient conflict detection and the need to switch task sets. Significance StatementCognitive flexibility--the ability to adapt behavior to a changing environment--is essential for goal-directed actions. For assessing cognitive flexibility unlike the typical approach, we did not use incongruent bivalent stimuli. We used univalent and congruent bivalent stimuli to isolate cognitive flexibility while assessing interference control separately with incongruent bivalent stimuli. We analyzed well-documented brain activities related to cognitive flexibility (P3b, N2, P3a, LSP) and interference control (N400, LSP), and mid-frontal EEG theta activity. Despite using different stimuli, we observed all expected components associated with the switch process except for the P3b. Both processes share common parietal activity, and while the frontal lobe plays a role in both, its activity differs between them.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Tahamtan, Z., Osia, S. A., Herman, P. A.. 2025-05-05. Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Flexibility and Interference Control in a Stroop Task Switching Paradigm. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.05.05.652181

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Same Movements, Different Skills: How Context Shapes Learning in Humans and Neural Networks

What determines whether experiences are integrated into shared representations or split? Motor skill learning offers a revealing test: when two tasks require an identical sequence of movements, both intuition and theory suggest that practice in one should generalize to the other. Yet we find that changing context can make identical movements different skills. In simple recurrent networks trained on the same sequence across contexts, splitting was greatest when strong contextual inputs coincided with a high initial weight scale; neither alone sufficed. Greater representational separation coincided with separate context-specific learning curves. Humans practicing the same finger sequence while alternating between two performance-irrelevant contexts likewise exhibited context-specific curves, rather than the single continuous trajectory observed when practicing in a single context. State-space modeling favored split learning states in humans and very weakly coupled states in the most context-dependent networks. These findings have broader implications for understanding how learning generalizes across contexts.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Postpartum resource scarcity reshapes maternal care, offspring prioritization, and the steroid-sensitive medial preoptic area

Parental care requires balancing offspring needs with environmental constraints, yet how resource scarcity alters the organization of maternal responses remains poorly understood. Here, we examined maternal behavior, offspring prioritization, and steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix organization in postpartum rats exposed to limited bedding and nesting (LBN) or control conditions with ample nesting materials. LBN increased pup-directed and reduced self-directed behaviors but also increased behavioral entropy, a measure of behavioral fragmentation, indicating less predictable caregiving sequences. LBN dams preferentially retrieved male pups first, whereas control dams preferentially retrieved females first. LBN also increased the proportion of pup-investigation time directed toward males compared with controls. In offspring on postnatal day 10, corticosterone was elevated in female but not male LBN pups, a pattern that paralleled the maternal male bias. To identify associated neurobiological changes, we assessed steroid receptors and extracellular matrix organization in the medial preoptic area (mPOA), a key region for maternal behavior. LBN increased numbers of estrogen receptor (ER)- and androgen receptor (AR)-immunoreactive cells, reduced perineuronal net (PNN) abundance, and decreased receptor-positive cell enwrapment. Because PNNs constrain structural plasticity, these findings suggest that the postpartum environment alters the organization of steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix, potentially modulating experience-dependent plasticity in neurosteroid-sensitive circuits. In sum, LBN increases the levels of maternal engagement while reshaping its temporal organization and allocation, accompanied by selective remodeling of steroid-sensitive preoptic architecture. Therefore, maternal adaptation to adversity may be better understood as changes in caregiving allocation strategies rather than a simple gain or loss of maternal care.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

The Computational Grammar of Human Behaviour in a Biological Environment

Human behaviour unfolds as an extended stream of spontaneous actions shaped by environmental demands and the agent's goals. The organisation of these actions, situated between setting abstract goals and concrete movement execution, remains poorly characterised. Here, we introduce DynaClade, an unsupervised temporal action segmentation algorithm for human full-body motion capture data, and apply it to freely moving participants navigating ecologically realistic risky foraging environments in virtual reality. DynaClade identifies discrete actions whose kinematic characteristics and spatial distributions correspond to environmental affordances, supporting the validity of the approach. Among these actions, we discovered a hitherto undescribed movement pattern defined by increased body sway without locomotion. Action sequences were highly non-random and showed clear history dependence beyond first-order Markov structure, most of which was explained by a second-order prediction. This higher-order structure was well captured in a hidden Markov model, in which some of the observed actions were associated with more than one latent state. Each of these latent states corresponded to the same action in a distinct action context. These findings suggest that spontaneous human actions are predominantly selected based on the current action and context, rather than following pre-planned or habitually assembled sequences.

neuroscience↗