Can you teach an old dog (or human) new tricks? Yes, but it might take time, practice, and hard work before he or she gets it right, according to Hans Schroder and colleagues from Michigan State University in the US. Their work shows that when rules change, our attempts to control our actions are accompanied by a loss of attention to detail.
Their work is published online in the Springer journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.
In order to adapt to changing conditions, humans need to be able to modify their behavior successfully. Overriding the rules we adhere to on a daily basis requires substantial attention and effort, and we do not always get it right the first time. When we switch between two or more tasks, we are slower and more likely to commit errors, which suggests switching tasks is a costly process. This may explain why it is so hard to learn from our mistakes when rules change.
The authors explain: "Switching the rules we use to perform a task makes us less aware of our mistakes. We therefore have a harder time learning from them. That's because switching tasks is mentally taxing and costly, which leads us to pay less attention to the detail and therefore make more mistakes."
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