Differential Effects of Cue Changes and Task Changes on Task-Set Selection Costs

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 362 - 372
• Main Authors: Mayr, Ulrich, Kliegl, Reinhold
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-05-2003
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Choice Behavior; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Processes; Color Perception; Cues; Discrimination (Psychology); Form Perception; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Inhibition (Psychology); Long Term Memory; Memory; Miscellaneous; Priming; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Time Factors; Visual task performance; Human; Priming effect; Memory; Information processing; Task switching; Cognition; Inhibition; Experimental study; Long term
• ISSN: 0278-7393; 1939-1285
• DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.29.3.362

A task-switching paradigm with a 2:1 mapping between cues and tasks was used to separate cue-switching processes (indexed through pure cue-switch costs) from actual task-switching processes (indexed through additional costs in case of cue and task changes). A large portion of total switch costs was due to cue changes (Experiments 1 and 2), and cue-switch costs but not task-switch costs were sensitive to effects of practice (Experiment 1) and preparation (Experiment 2). In contrast, task-switch costs were particularly sensitive to response-priming effects (Experiments 1 and 2) and task-set inhibition (Experiment 3). Results suggest two processing stages relevant during task-set selection: cue-driven retrieval of task rules from long-term memory and the automatic application of rules to a particular stimulus situation.