Prefrontal Cortex and Flexible Cognitive Control: Rules without Symbols

Human cognitive control is uniquely flexible and has been shown to depend on prefrontal cortex (PFC). But exactly how the biological mechanisms of the PFC support flexible cognitive control remains a profound mystery. Existing theoretical models have posited powerful task-specific PFC representation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2005-05, Vol.102 (20), p.7338-7343
Main Authors: Rougier, Nicolas P., Noelle, David C., Braver, Todd S., Cohen, Jonathan D., O'Reilly, Randall C., McClelland, James L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Brain research
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive models
Computer Simulation
Generalization (Psychology) - physiology
Humans
Life Sciences
Mental stimulation
Modeling
Models, Theoretical
Neurons and Cognition
Neuropsychology
Prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal Cortex - physiology
Rules
Simulation training
Simulations
Symbols
Task Performance and Analysis
Training
Updating
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Summary:Human cognitive control is uniquely flexible and has been shown to depend on prefrontal cortex (PFC). But exactly how the biological mechanisms of the PFC support flexible cognitive control remains a profound mystery. Existing theoretical models have posited powerful task-specific PFC representations, but not how these develop. We show how this can occur when a set of PFC-specific neural mechanisms interact with breadth of experience to self organize abstract rule-like PFC representations that support flexible generalization in novel tasks. The same model is shown to apply to benchmark PFC tasks (Stroop and Wisconsin card sorting), accurately simulating the behavior of neurologically intact and frontally damaged people.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0502455102