The impact of efficiency-flexibility trade-offs on learning strategies across the lifespan (B07)

• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178833530

Goal-directed action in complex environments poses an efficiency-flexibility trade-off. While selecting ac-tions based on explicit representations of task structures supports flexible behavior but is computationally costly, selecting previously successful actions is less demanding but inflexible. Project B07 integrates meta-control with memory models to investigate how this trade-off affects learning and control strategies in children and older adults compared to younger adults. Morover, we will investigate whether replay of task representations during rest periods might be a way to “offload” computational costs to off-task periods and thereby mitigate efficiency-flexibility trade-offs particularly in children and older adults.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 940: Volition and Cognitive Control: Mechanisms, Modulators and Dysfunctions
• International Connection: Canada
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Benjamin Eppinger; Professor Dr. Stefan Kiebel, until 6/2020; Dr. Andrea Reiter, since 7/2020