Target-Response Associations Can Produce Response-Congruency Effects Without Task-Switching Costs (original) (raw)
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Task switching: on the origin of response congruency effects
Psychological Research, 2005
When people frequently alternate between simple cognitive tasks, performance on stimuli which are assigned the same response in both tasks is typically faster and more accurate than on stimuli which require different responses for both tasks, thus indicating stimulus processing according to the stimulus-response (S-R) rules of the currently irrelevant task. It is currently under debate whether such response congruency effects are mediated by the activation of an abstract representation of the irrelevant task in working memory or by ''direct'' associations between specific stimuli and responses. We contrasted these views by manipulating concurrent memory load (Experiment 1) and the frequency of specific S-R associations (Experiment 2). While between-task response congruency effects were not affected by the amount of concurrent memory load, they were much stronger for stimuli that were processed frequently in the context of a competitor task. These findings are consistent with the idea that a large portion of the congruency effects stems from direct S-R associations and they do not support a sole mediation by taskset activation in working memory.
Irrelevant stimulus processing when switching between tasks
Zeitschrift Fur Psychologie-Journal of Psychology, 2013
Frequent switching between two tasks afforded by the same stimuli is associated with between-task congruency effects, that is, relatively impaired performance when a stimulus affords different responses as compared to the same responses in both tasks. These congruency effects indicate some form of application of the stimulus-response (S-R) rules of the currently irrelevant task. Between-task congruency effects are usually enhanced on task switch trials compared with task repetition trials. Here we investigate whether this interaction reflects stronger proactive interference from the irrelevant task on switch trials or whether performance on switch trials is characterized by generally enhanced susceptibility to task-irrelevant information processing. To this end, we contrasted between-task congruency effects with interference exerted from flanker stimuli taken from the current task (Experiment 1) and from spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC; Experiment 2). In both experiments, between-task congruency effects were larger on switch trials than on repetition trials, whereas interference from the other source remained constant, thus demonstrating that switch trials are not characterized by generally increased distractibility.
Selecting a response in task switching: Testing a model of compound cue retrieval
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2009
How can a task-appropriate response be selected for an ambiguous target stimulus in task-switching situations? One answer is to use compound cue retrieval, whereby stimuli serve as joint retrieval cues to select a response from long-term memory. In the present study, the authors tested how well a model of compound cue retrieval could account for a complex pattern of congruency effects arising from a procedure in which a cue, prime, and target were presented on each trial. A comparison of alternative models of prime-based effects revealed that the best model was one in which all stimuli participated directly in the process of retrieving a response, validating previous modeling efforts. Relations to current theorizing about response congruency effects and models of response selection in task switching are discussed.
Modelling response selection in task switching: Testing the contingent encoding assumption
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014
The contingent encoding assumption is the idea that response selection in task-switching situations does not begin until the cue and the target have both been encoded. The authors tested the assumption by manipulating response congruency, stimulus order, and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in two experiments. They found evidence of response selection prior to cue encoding for congruent targets with target-cue order at a long SOA, indicating that the contingent encoding assumption is invalid. The authors describe how contingent encoding can be removed from an existing task-switching model by introducing baseline evidence-task-neutral evidence that serves as a baseline for response selection prior to stimulus encoding. Simulations revealed that the modified model could reproduce the full pattern of response time data and generate responses prior to cue encoding. The authors conclude by discussing directions for further model development.
Response activation in overlapping tasks and the response-selection bottleneck
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2008
The authors investigated the impact of response activation on dual-task performance by presenting a subliminal prime before the stimulus in Task 2 (S2) of a psychological refractory period (PRP) task. Congruence between prime and S2 modulated the reaction times in Task 2 at short stimulus onset asynchrony despite a PRP effect. This Task 2 congruence effect was paralleled by a Task 1 congruence effect and emerged exclusively under conditions of cross talk, whereas it did not occur under dual-task conditions preventing cross talk between tasks. This suggests that response activation operates during the PRP in dual tasks and affects the response times in Task 2 via cross talk between common processing elements at prebottleneck stages but not by directly affecting the postbottleneck stages.
The Role of Task-Related Learned Representations in Explaining Asymmetries in Task Switching
PLoS ONE, 2013
Task switch costs often show an asymmetry, with switch costs being larger when switching from a difficult task to an easier task. This asymmetry has been explained by difficult tasks being represented more strongly and consequently requiring more inhibition prior to switching to the easier task. The present study shows that switch cost asymmetries observed in arithmetic tasks (addition vs. subtraction) do not depend on task difficulty: Switch costs of similar magnitudes were obtained when participants were presented with unsolvable pseudo-equations that did not differ in task difficulty. Further experiments showed that neither task switch costs nor switch cost asymmetries were due to perceptual factors (e.g., perceptual priming effects). These findings suggest that asymmetrical switch costs can be brought about by the association of some tasks with greater difficulty than others. Moreover, the finding that asymmetrical switch costs were observed (1) in the absence of a task switch proper and (2) without differences in task difficulty, suggests that present theories of task switch costs and switch cost asymmetries are in important ways incomplete and need to be modified.
The role of response modalities in cognitive task representations
Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 2011
Planck institute for human cognitive and Brain sciences, leipzig, germany response modalities, cognitive control, motor control, task switching, task representation the execution of a task necessitates the use of a specific response modality. We examined the role of different response modalities by using a task-switching paradigm. in experiment 1, subjects switched between two numerical judgments, whereas response modality (vocal vs. manual vs. foot responses) was manipulated between groups. We found judgment-shift costs in each group, that is irrespective of the response modality. in experiment 2, subjects switched between response modalities (vocal vs. manual, vocal vs. foot, or manual vs. foot). We observed response-modality shift costs that were comparable in all groups. in sum, the experiments suggest that the response modality (combination) does not affect switching per se. yet, modality-shift costs occur when subjects switch between response modalities. thus, we suppose that modality-shift costs are not due to a purely motor-related mechanisms but rather emerge from a general switching process. consequently, the response modality has to be considered as a cognitive component in models of task switching.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2007
Six experiments were conducted to separate cue encoding from target processing in explicitly cued task switching to determine whether task switch effects could be separated from cue encoding effects and to determine the nature of the representations produced by cue encoding. Subjects were required to respond to the cue, indicating which cue was presented (Experiments 1, 3a, and 4a) or which task was cued (Experiments 2, 3b, and 4b), before performing the cued task on the target. Cue encoding was successfully separated from target processing when the cue response indicated which task was cued but not when it indicated which cue was presented. Task switch effects were found when this separation was successful, suggesting that there are "true" task switch effects independent of cue encoding. Analysis of the conditions required for successful separation suggested that cue encoding results in a semantic categorical representation of the task to be performed rather than verbal or phonological representations of individual cues. Implications for the authors' past modeling of task-switching performance are discussed.
Learning a nonmediated route for response selection in task switching
Memory & cognition, 2015
Two modes of response selection-a mediated route involving categorization and a nonmediated route involving instance-based memory retrieval-have been proposed to explain response congruency effects in task-switching situations. In the present study, we sought a better understanding of the development and characteristics of the nonmediated route. In two experiments involving training and transfer phases, we investigated practice effects at the level of individual target presentations, transfer effects associated with changing category-response mappings, target-specific effects from comparisons of old and new targets during transfer, and the percentages of early responses associated with task-nonspecific response selection (the target preceded the task cue on every trial). The training results suggested that the nonmediated route is quickly learned in the context of target-cue order and becomes increasingly involved in response selection with practice. The transfer results suggested t...
The Task Rule Congruency Effect in Task Switching Reflects Activated Long-Term Memory
Journal of Experimental Psychology-human Perception and Performance, 2008
Reaction time task rule congruency effects (RT-TRCEs) reflect faster responses to stimuli for which the competing task rules indicate the same correct response than to stimuli indicating conflicting responses. The authors tested the hypothesis that RT-TRCE reflects activated overlearned response category codes in long-term memory (such as up or left). The results support the hypothesis by showing that (a) RT-TRCE was absent for tasks for which there were no response codes ready beforehand, (b) RT-TRCE was present after these tasks were practiced, and (c) these practice effects were found only if the tasks permitted forming abstract response category codes. The increase in the RT-TRCE with response slowness, found only for familiar tasks, suggests that the abstract response category codes may be verbal or linguistic in these cases. The results are discussed in relation to task-switching theories and prefrontal functions.