Elsevier

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 41, Issue 3, November 2000, Pages 211-253
Cognitive Psychology

Regular Article
Component Processes in Task Switching

https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2000.0736Get rights and content

Abstract

Participants switched between two randomly ordered, two-choice reaction-time (RT) tasks, where an instructional cue preceded the target stimulus and indicated which task to execute. Task-switching cost dissipated passively while the participants waited for the instructional cue in order to know which task to execute (during the Response–Cue Interval). Switching cost was sharply reduced, but not abolished, when the participants actively prepared for the task switch in response to the instructional cue (during the Cue–Target Interval). The preparation for a task switch has shown not to be a by-product of general preparation by phasic alertness or predicting target onset. It is suggested that task-switching cost has at least three components reflecting (1) the passive dissipation of the previous task set, (2) the preparation of the new task set, and (3) a residual component.

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    The preparation of this work was supported in part by fellowships from VATAT and Kreitman, and by a research grant form the Israeli Science Foundation. We thank the reviewers for helpful comments and Desiree Maloul for correcting the English.

    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Nachshon Meiran, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel, 84105. E-mail: [email protected].

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