Learning and transfer of working memory gating policies

Abstract knowledge about the tasks we encounter enables us to rapidly and flexibly adapt to novel task contexts. Previous research has focused primarily on abstract rules that leverage shared structure in stimulus-response (S-R) mappings as the basis of such task knowledge. Here we provide evidence that working memory (WM) gating policies – a type of control policy required for internal control of WM during a task – constitute a form of abstract task knowledge that can be transferred across contexts. In two experiments, we report specific evidence for the transfer of selective WM gating policies across changes of task context. We show that this transfer is not tied to shared structure in S-R mappings, but instead in the dynamic structure of the task. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of WM gating policies in particular, and control policies in general, as a key component of the task knowledge that supports flexible behavior and task generalization.

对所遇任务的抽象知识使我们能够迅速且灵活地适应新颖的任务情境。以往的研究主要集中于利用刺激-反应（S-R）映射中的共享结构作为此类任务知识的抽象规则。本研究提供了工作记忆（WM）门控策略（一种在任务过程中内部控制工作记忆所需的控制策略）构成一种抽象任务知识的证据，这种知识可以在不同情境间进行迁移。在两项实验中，我们报告了关于选择性WM门控策略在任务情境变化中迁移的具体证据。我们表明，这种迁移并非与S-R映射中的共享结构相关联，而是与任务的动态结构相关。总体而言，我们的结果突显了工作记忆门控策略（尤其是）以及控制策略（一般而言）作为支持灵活行为和任务泛化任务知识的关键组成部分的重要性。