While both are essential components of the control system, the EVC theory ascribes to dACC a role in specification but not regulation, as we discuss below. Monitoring. In order to specify the appropriate control signal and deploy regulative functions in an adaptive manner, the system must have access to information about current

circumstances and how well it is serving task demands. Detecting and evaluating these requires a monitoring mechanism. The conflict-detection component in the Stroop model provides one example of such a monitoring function and how it can guide specification: the occurrence of response conflict indicates that insufficient control is being allocated to the current task (see Botvinick, 2007, Botvinick et al., 2001 and Botvinick et al., PI3K inhibitor 2004). Selleckchem ZD1839 In this instance, conflict indicates the need to re-specify control signal intensity. However, conflict is just one among many signals that can indicate the need to adjust intensity. Others include response delays, errors, negative feedback, and the sensation of pain. These signals all carry information about performance within

a task and how to specify control signal intensity. Monitoring must also consider information relevant to the specification of control signal identity; that is, to task choice. Such information can come from external sources (e.g., explicit instructions, cues indicating new opportunities for reward, or the sudden appearance of a threat) or internal ones (e.g., diminishing payoffs from the current task indicating

it is no longer worth performing, recollection of another task that needs to be performed, etc.). In all of these cases, monitoring must be responsive to, but should be distinguished Adenylyl cyclase from, the sensory and valuative processes that represent the actual information relevant to specification. Thus, just as we distinguish between specification and regulation on the efferent side of control, we distinguish between monitoring and valuation on the afferent side. In each case, the EVC theory ascribes to dACC a role in the former, but not the latter. Early research on control focused on regulative and monitoring mechanisms, but growing attention is being paid to the problem of control-signal specification. Work in this area has been driven increasingly by ideas from research on reward-based decision making and reinforcement learning. One emerging trend has involved reframing control-signal specification as an optimization problem, shaped by learning or planning mechanisms that serve to maximize long-term expected reward (Bogacz et al., 2006, Dayan, 2012, Hazy et al., 2007, O’Reilly and Frank, 2006, Todd et al., 2008 and Yu et al., 2009). Under this view, cognitive control can be defined as the set of mechanisms responsible for configuring behavior in order to maximize the attainment of reward.