Task-switching and long-term priming: Role of episodic stimulus–task bindings in task-shift costs

• Published in: Cognitive psychology Vol. 46; no. 4; pp. 361 - 413
• Main Authors: Waszak, Florian, Hommel, Bernhard, Allport, Alan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.06.2003; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive science; Episodic retrieval; Executive functions; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Miscellaneous; Neuroscience; Priming; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Reading; Stimuli; Stroop interference; S–R bindings; Task-switching; Verbal Behavior; Vocabulary; Task-switching; Stroop interference; Executive functions; Priming; S–R bindings; Episodic retrieval; Human; Executive function; Priming effect; Task switching; Cognition; Experimental study; S-R bindings

When subjects switch between two tasks, performance is slower after a task switch than after a task repetition. We report five experiments showing that a large part of these “task-shift-costs” cannot be attributed to a control operation, needed to configure the cognitive system for the upcoming task...