Advance Preparation in Task Switching: What Work Is Being Done?

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 15; no. 9; pp. 616 - 622
• Main Author: Altmann, Erik M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Blackwell Publishing 01.09.2004; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Attention; Between-subjects design; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive load; Cognitive models; Cost efficiency; Cost estimates; Cost functions; Cues; Discrimination Learning; Error rates; Experimental psychology; Experimentation; Experiments; Human behaviour; Humans; Memory; Psychological aspects; Psychology; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Rectangles; Sociology; Stimulus; Switching; Visual task performance
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00729.x

The preparation effect in task switching is usually interpreted to mean that a switching process makes use of the interval between task-cue onset and trial-stimulus onset (the cue-stimulus interval, or CSI) to accomplish some of its work ahead of time. This study undermines the empirical basis for this interpretation and suggests that task activation, not task switching, is the functional process in cognitive control. Experiments 1 and 2 used an explicit cuing paradigm, and Experiments 3 and 4 used a variation in which the trial after a task cue was followed by several cueless trials, requiring retention of the cue in memory. Experiments 1 and 3 replicated the preparation effect on switch cost, and Experiments 2 and 4 showed that this effect vanishes when CSI is manipulated between subjects, leaving only a main effect of CSI when the task cue is a memory load.