Cross-task specificity and within-task invariance of cognitive control processes

Cognitive control involves flexibly combining multiple sensory inputs with task-dependent goals during decision making. Several tasks involving conflicting sensory inputs and motor outputs have been proposed to examine cognitive control, including the Stroop, Flanker, and multi-source interference task. Because these tasks have been studied independently, it remains unclear whether the neural signatures of cognitive control reflect abstract control mechanisms or specific combinations of sensory and behavioral aspects of each task. To address these questions, we record invasive neurophysiological signals from 16 patients with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy and compare neural responses within and between tasks. Neural signals differ between incongruent and congruent conditions, showing strong modulation by conflicting task demands. These neural signals are mostly specific to each task, generalizing within a task but not across tasks. These results highlight the complex interplay between sensory inputs, motor outputs, and task demands underlying cognitive control processes. [Display omitted] •Neural signals reveal incongruency during multiple cognitive control tasks•The neural circuits that detect conflict generalize within a task•The neural mechanisms underlying cognitive control are not task invariant•Cognitive control relies on specific combinations of sensory inputs and motor outputs Cognitive control involves flexibly routing information according to current goals. Xiao et al. demonstrate that the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive control generalize across different conditions within a task but are not task invariant. Instead, the neural signatures of conflict monitoring reflect task-dependent combinations of sensory inputs and motor outputs.