This chapter reviews the original formulations of the distinction between controlled and
automatic processing. This review is intended to be useful in at least two ways: as a guide to …

The ability to follow new instructions is crucial for acquiring behaviors and the cultural
transmission of performance-related knowledge. In this article, we discuss the observation …

The human brain is organized into large-scale functional networks that can flexibly
reconfigure their connectivity patterns, supporting both rapid adaptive control and long-term …

People have a strong tendency to attend to reward cues, even if these cues are irrelevant to
their current goal or their current task. When reward cues are goal-irrelevant, their presence …

Rapid instructed task learning (RITL) is one of the most remarkable human abilities, when
considered from both computational and evolutionary perspectives. A key feature of RITL is …

Automaticity is widely assumed to reflect hardwired tendencies or the outcome of prior
practice. Recent research on automatic effects of instruction (AEIs), however, indicates that …

Working memory (WM) updating is a controlled process through which relevant information
in the environment is selected to enter the gate to WM and substitute its contents. We …

Task preparation has traditionally been thought to rely upon persistent representations of
instructions that permit their execution after delays. Accumulating evidence suggests …

While cognitive control enables the selection of goal-relevant responses, metacontrol
enables the selection of context-appropriate control operations. In task switching …

Humans excel in instruction following to boost performance in unfamiliar situations. We can
do so through so-called prepared reflexes: Abstract instructions are instantly translated into …