Voluntary Task Switching: Chasing the Elusive Homunculus

In the voluntary task switching procedure, subjects choose the task to perform on a series of bivalent stimuli, requiring top-down control of task switching. Experiments 1-3 contrasted voluntary task switching and explicit task cuing. Choice behavior showed small, inconsistent effects of external st...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 683 - 702
Main Authors Arrington, Catherine M, Logan, Gordon D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Psychological Association 01.07.2005
Subjects
Attention
Choice Behavior
Concept Formation
Cues
Decision Making
Experimental Psychology
Experiments
Humans
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Problem Solving
Psychomotor Performance
Reaction Time
Set (Psychology)
Stimuli
Task Analysis
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:In the voluntary task switching procedure, subjects choose the task to perform on a series of bivalent stimuli, requiring top-down control of task switching. Experiments 1-3 contrasted voluntary task switching and explicit task cuing. Choice behavior showed small, inconsistent effects of external stimulus characteristics, supporting the assumption of top-down control of task choice. Switch costs were smaller when subjects chose to switch tasks than when instructed by an external cue. Experiments 4-6 separated choice costs from switch costs. These findings support models of task switching that incorporate top-down processes in accounts of switch costs. The degree to which task switching procedures capture top-down versus bottom-up processes may depend on the extent of environmental support provided by the procedure.
ISSN:0278-7393
DOI:10.1037/0278-7393.31.4.683