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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 5/2019

26-09-2017 | Original Article

Response–cue interval effects in extended-runs task switching: memory, or monitoring?

Auteur: Erik M. Altmann

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 5/2019

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Abstract

This study investigated effects of manipulating the response–cue interval (RCI) in the extended-runs task-switching procedure. In this procedure, a task cue is presented at the start of a run of trials and then withdrawn, such that the task has to be stored in memory to guide performance until the next task cue is presented. The effects of the RCI manipulation were not as predicted by an existing model of memory processes in task switching (Altmann and Gray, Psychol Rev 115:602–639, 2008), suggesting that either the model is incorrect or the RCI manipulation did not have the intended effect. The manipulation did produce a theoretically meaningful pattern, in the form of a main effect on response time that was not accompanied by a similar effect on the error rate. This pattern, which replicated across two experiments, is interpreted here in terms of a process that monitors for the next task cue, with a longer RCI acting as a stronger signal that a cue is about to appear. The results have implications for the human factors of dynamic task environments in which critical events occur unpredictably.
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1
In Fig. 1, the retrieval threshold is shown in the optimal location, midway between the two densities. However, the threshold is stable while the densities shift as they decay, so the threshold is not always exactly in this optimal location. The key point is that the greater the activation difference between the densities, the further left the threshold can be to improve the ratio of correct to incorrect retrievals. For more information on where the threshold is located in the Altmann and Gray (2008) simulation, see their Figure 12.
 
2
Because run length was sampled from a geometric distribution, the maximum run length was unbounded (and thus greater than 7), but the number of observations per data point also decreased for each successive position. In Experiment 1, there were 41.3 observations per RT data point for Position 7, which is ample. However, in Experiment 2, with an additional within-participants variable (RCI), this number decreased to 21.0, and was 14.2 for Position 8, which seemed low. Accordingly, I limited analysis to Positions 1–7 for both experiments.
 
3
A task cue could not occur on positions 1, 2, or 3 of a run, but a reasonable theoretical assumption seems to be that any monitoring process would been have deployed consistently on all trials rather than being cycled on and off in a way that requires an additional process that monitors position in run.
 
Literatuur
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Metagegevens
Titel
Response–cue interval effects in extended-runs task switching: memory, or monitoring?
Auteur
Erik M. Altmann
Publicatiedatum
26-09-2017
Uitgeverij
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 5/2019
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0921-3

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