Abstract
Humans are remarkably limited in: (i) how many control-dependent tasks they can execute simultaneously, and (ii) how intensely they can focus on a single task. These limitations are universal assumptions of most theories of cognition. Yet, a rationale for why humans are subject to these constraints remains elusive. This feature review draws on recent insights from psychology, neuroscience, and machine learning, to suggest that constraints on cognitive control may result from a rational adaptation to fundamental, computational dilemmas in neural architectures. The reviewed literature implies that limitations in multitasking may result from a trade-off between learning efficacy and processing efficiency and that limitations in the intensity of commitment to a single task may reflect a trade-off between cognitive stability and flexibility.
Highlights
Humans are remarkably limited in: (i) how many control-dependent tasks they can execute simultaneously, and (ii) how intensely they can focus on a single task
In the second part of this article, we review evidence for the hypothesis that constraints on the amount of control allocated to a single task result from a bias in this trade-off, toward the ability to flexibly switch between tasks
We considered constraints on: (i) the number of control-demanding tasks that humans can execute simultaneously, as well as (ii) the amount of control that they allocate to a single task, and reviewed recent work that suggests why the allocation of control might be subject to these constraints, in terms of a common set of principles concerning the representation and processing of information in neural network architectures (Boxes 3 and 4)
Summary
Humans are remarkably limited in: (i) how many control-dependent tasks they can execute simultaneously, and (ii) how intensely they can focus on a single task. Humans are strikingly limited in how many control-demanding tasks (see Glossary) they can perform simultaneously (e.g., reading a document while listening to a friend) or how intensely they can focus on a single task (e.g., parsing a mathematical equation in a noisy environment) The significance of these limitations is apparent in daily life. The notion of a cost and concomitant constraints on control, can help integrate a wide range of empirical findings concerning the allocation of mental effort [10,11,12,13], the selection between cognitive heuristics [5], planning [14,15], or cognitive impairments in depression [16] None of these theories provides an explanation for why control-dependent processing would be subject to these limitations in the first place.
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