A Goldilocks theory of cognitive control: Balancing precision and efficiency with low-dimensional control states

Camden J MacDowell; Sina Tafazoli; Timothy J Buschman

doi:10.1016/j.conb.2022.102606

A Goldilocks theory of cognitive control: Balancing precision and efficiency with low-dimensional control states

Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2022 Oct:76:102606. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2022.102606. Epub 2022 Jul 20.

Authors

Camden J MacDowell¹, Sina Tafazoli², Timothy J Buschman³

Affiliations

¹ Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Washington Rd, Princeton, NJ, USA; Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 125 Paterson St, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/CamdenMacdowell.
² Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Washington Rd, Princeton, NJ, USA. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/tafazolisina.
³ Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Washington Rd, Princeton, NJ, USA; Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Washington Rd, Princeton, NJ, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].

Abstract

Cognitive control orchestrates interactions between brain regions, guiding the transformation of information to support contextually appropriate and goal-directed behaviors. In this review, we propose a hierarchical model of cognitive control where low-dimensional control states direct the flow of high-dimensional representations between regions. This allows cognitive control to flexibly adapt to new environments and maintain the representational capacity to capture the richness of the world.

A Goldilocks theory of cognitive control: Balancing precision and efficiency with low-dimensional control states

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding