Examining the cognitive processes underlying resumption costs in task-interruption contexts: Decay or inhibition of suspended task goals?

• Published in: Memory & cognition Vol. 52; no. 2; pp. 271 - 284
• Main Authors: Hirsch, Patricia, Moretti, Luca, Askin, Sibel, Koch, Iring
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.02.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Psychology; Costs; Goals; Human performance; Humans; Inhibition, Psychological; Memory; Psychology; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Repetition; Scheduling; Task Performance and Analysis; Resumption costs; Task interruptions; Inhibition; Persisting activation
• ISSN: 0090-502X; 1532-5946; 1532-5946
• DOI: 10.3758/s13421-023-01458-8

To examine whether an ongoing primary task is inhibited when switching to an interruption task, we implemented the n − 2 backward inhibition paradigm into a task-interruption setting. In two experiments, subjects performed two primary tasks (block-wise manipulation) consisting of a predefined sequence of three subtasks. The primary tasks differed regarding whether the last subtask switched or repeated relative to the penultimate subtask, resulting in n − 1 switch subtasks (e.g., AB C ) and n − 1 repetition subtasks (e.g., AC C ) as the last subtask of the primary task. Occasionally, an interruption task was introduced before the last subtask of a primary task, changing the last subtask of the primary task from a n − 1 switch subtask to a n − 2 switch subtask (e.g., A B → secondary task → C ) and from a n − 1 repetition subtask to a n − 2 repetition subtask (e.g., A C → secondary task → C ). In two experiments with different degrees of response-set overlap between the interruption task and the subtasks of the primary task, we observed that switching back from the interruption task to the primary task resulted in n − 2 switch costs in the first subtask after the interruption (i.e., worse performance in n − 2 switch subtasks than in n − 2 repetition subtasks). This n − 2 switch cost was replicated in a third experiment in which we used a predefined sequence of four subtasks instead of three subtasks. Our finding of n − 2 switch costs suggest that the last subtask performed before the interruption remains activated when switching to the interruption task.