While cognitive control enables the selection of goal-relevant responses, metacontrol enables the selection of context-appropriate control operations. In task switching, metacontrol modulates task-switching efficiency by retrieving the associations between a contextual cue and a particular cognitive control demand. While the automatic retrieval of cognitive control is appealing due to its time and energy efficiency, the effects of different contextual cues have been shown in separate studies and appear to have different characteristics. Here, we devised a single task-switching paradigm to test whether we can observe both list-wide and item-specific metacontrol within subjects. In two experiments, we demonstrated reduced switch costs in lists associated with a high probability of switching as compared with lists with a low probability of switching (i.e., a list-wide switch probability [LWSP] effect). Similarly, we observed an analogous item-specific switch probability (ISSP) effect such that items associated with a high probability of switching incurred smaller switch costs as compared with items associated with a low probability of switching. We also confirmed that both list-wide and item-specific switch probability effects were not dependent on lower-level stimulus–response associations. However, the LWSP and the ISSP effects were uncorrelated, suggesting a lack of dependence. Together, these findings suggest that there are two distinct modes of metacontrol that are deployed in a context-sensitive manner in order to adapt to specific cognitive demands.

认知控制可以选择与目标相关的响应，而元控制可以选择适合上下文的控制操作。在任务切换中，元控制通过检索上下文线索和特定认知控制需求之间的关联来调节任务切换效率。虽然认知控制的自动检索因其时间和能量效率而吸引人，但不同背景线索的影响已在不同的研究中显示出来，并且似乎具有不同的特征。在这里，我们设计了一个单一的任务切换范式来测试我们是否可以在主题内同时观察列表范围和特定项目的元控制。在两个实验中，我们证明了与转换概率低的列表相比，转换概率高的列表中的转换成本降低（即，列表范围的转换概率 [LWSP] 效应）。类似地，我们观察到类似的项目特定转换概率 (ISSP) 效应，与转换概率低的项目相比，转换概率高的项目产生的转换成本更小。我们还证实，列表范围和特定项目的转换概率效应都不依赖于较低级别的刺激 - 反应关联。然而，LWSP 和 ISSP 效应不相关，表明缺乏依赖性。一起，