Abstract
Contextual cues signaling task likelihood or the likelihood of task repetition are known to modulate the size of switch costs. We follow up on the finding by Leboe, Wong, Crump, and Stobbe (2008) that location cues predictive of the proportion of switch or repeat trials modulate switch costs. Their design employed one cue per task, whereas our experiment employed two cues per task, which allowed separate assessment of modulations to the cue-repetition benefit, a measure of lower level cue-encoding processes, and to the task-alternation cost, a measure of higher level processes representing task-set information. We demonstrate that location information predictive of switch proportion modulates performance at the level of task-set representations. Furthermore, we demonstrate that contextual control occurs even when subjects are unaware of the associations between context and switch likelihood. We discuss the notion that contextual information provides rapid, unconscious control over the extent to which prior task-set representations are retrieved in the service of guiding online performance. M. J. C. Crump, matt.crump@vanderbilt.edu
Article PDF
References
Allport, A., &Wylie, G. (2000). Selection-for-action in competing (Stroop) tasks: “Task-switching,” stimulusresponse bindings, and negative priming. In S. Monsell & J. Driver (Eds.),Control of cognitive processes: Attention and performance XVIII (pp. 35–70). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brooks, L. R. (1987). Decentralized control of categorization: The role of prior processing episodes. In U. Neisser (Ed.),Concepts and con-ceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (pp. 141–174). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chun, M. M. (2000). Contextual cueing of visual attention.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,4, 170–178.
Clegg, B. A., DiGirolamo, G. J., &Keele, S. W. (1998). Sequence learning.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,2, 275–281.
Crump, M. J. C., Gong, Z., &Milliken, B. (2006). The contextspecific proportion congruent Stroop effect: Location as a contextual cue.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,13, 316–321.
Crump, M. J. C., Vaquero, J. M. M., &Milliken, B. (2008). Contextspecific learning and control: The roles of awareness, task relevance, and relative salience.Consciousness & Cognition,17, 22–36.
Dreisbach, G., &Haider, H. (2006). Preparatory adjustment of cognitive control in the task switching paradigm.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,13, 334–338.
Dreisbach, G., Haider, H., &Kluwe, R. H. (2002). Preparatory processes in the task-switching paradigm: Evidence from the use of probability cues.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,28, 468–483.
Goschke, T. (2000). Decomposing the central executive: Persistence, deactivation and reconfiguration of voluntary task-set. In S. Monsell & J. Driver (Eds.),Control of cognitive processes: Attention and performance XVIII (pp. 331–356). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gotler, A., Meiran, N., &Tzelgov, J. (2003). Nonintentional task set activation: Evidence from implicit task sequence learning.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,10, 890–896.
Hommel, B. (1998). Event files: Evidence for automatic integration of stimulusresponse episodes.Visual Cognition,5, 183–216.
Hommel, B. (2004). Event files: Feature binding in and across perception and action.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,8, 494–500.
Jersild, A. T. (1927). Mental set and shift.Archives of Psychology,14, 5–81.
Kiesel, A., Steinhauser, M., Wendt, M., Falkenstein, M., Jost, K., Philipp, A. M., &Koch, I. (2010). Control and interference in task switching—A review.Psychological Bulletin,136, 849–874.
Koch, I. (2005). Sequential task predictability in task switching.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,12, 107–112.
Koch, I., &Allport, A. (2006). Cue-based preparation and stimulusbased priming of tasks in task switching.Memory & Cognition,34, 433–444.
Leboe, J. P., Wong, J., Crump, M. [J. C.], &Stobbe, K. (2008). Probespecific proportion task repetition effects on switching costs.Perception & Psychophysics,70, 935–945.
Logan, G. D. (1988). Toward an instance theory of automatization.Psychological Review,95, 492–527.
Logan, G. D., &Bundesen, C. (2003). Clever homunculus: Is there an endogenous act of control in the explicit task-cuing procedure?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,29, 575–599.
Logan, G. D., &Schneider, D. W. (2006). Priming or executive control? Associative priming of cue encoding increases “switch costs” in the explicit task-cuing procedure.Memory & Cognition,34, 1250–1259.
Logan, G. D., Schneider, D. W., &Bundesen, C. (2007). Still clever after all these years: Searching for the homunculus in explicitly cued task switching.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,33, 978–994.
Mayr, U. (2006). What matters in the cued task-switching paradigm: Tasks or cues?Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,13, 794–799.
Mayr, U., &Bryck, R. L. (2005). Sticky rules: Integration between abstract rules and specific actions.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,31, 337–350.
Mayr, U., &Bryck, R. L. (2007). Outsourcing control to the environment: Effects of stimulus/response locations on task selection.Psychological Research,71, 107–116.
Mayr, U., &Kliegl, R. (2003). Differential effects of cue changes and task changes on task-set selection costs.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,29, 362–372.
Meiran, N. (1996). Reconfiguration of processing mode prior to task performance.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,22, 1423–1442.
Milliken, B., Joordens, S., Merikle, P. M., &Seiffert, A. E. (1998). Selective attention: A reevaluation of the implications of negative priming.Psychological Review,105, 203–229.
Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,7, 134–140.
Monsell, S., &Mizon, G. A. (2006). Can the task-cuing paradigm measure an “endogenous” task-set reconfiguration process?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,32, 493–516.
Morris, C. D., Bransford, J. D., &Franks, J. J. (1977). Levels of processing versus transfer-appropriate processing.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,16, 519–533.
Rickard, T. C. (1997). Bending the power law: A CMPL theory of strategy shifts and the automatization of cognitive skills.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,126, 288–311.
Rogers, R. D., &Monsell, S. (1995). Costs of a predictable switch between simple cognitive tasks.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,124, 207–231.
Rubin, O., &Koch, I. (2006). Exogenous influences on task set activation in task switching.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,59, 1033–1046.
Schneider, D. W., &Logan, G. D. (2005). Modeling task switching without switching tasks: A short-term priming account of explicitly cued performance.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,134, 343–367.
Schneider, D. W., &Logan, G. D. (2006a). Hierarchical control of cognitive processes: Switching tasks in sequences.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,135, 623–640.
Schneider, D. W., &Logan, G. D. (2006b). Priming cue encoding by manipulating transition frequency in explicitly cued task switching.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,13, 145–151.
Van Selst, M., &Jolicoeur, P. (1994). A solution to the effect of sample size on outlier elimination.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 631–650.
Waszak, F., Hommel, B., &Allport, A. (2003). Task-switching and long-term priming: Role of episodic stimulustask binding in taskshift costs.Cognitive Psychology,46, 361–413.
Waszak, F., Hommel, B., &Allport, A. (2004). Semantic generalization of stimulustask bindings.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,11, 1027–1033.
Waszak, F., Hommel, B., &Allport, A. (2005). Interaction of task readiness and automatic retrieval in task switching: Negative priming and competitor priming.Memory & Cognition,33, 595–610.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
During the drafting of this article, our dear friend and colleague Lee Brooks passed away. Lees ideas have been truly inspirational in guiding our research both here and in general. We dedicate this article to his memory and look forward to standing on his shoulders in the years to come. This research was supported by Grant R01-MH073879-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Crump, M.J.C., Logan, G.D. Contextual control over task-set retrieval. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 72, 2047–2053 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196681
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196681