title: A critical test of the failure-to-engage theory of task switching.
abstract: When people switch between two tasks, their performance on each is worse than when they perform that task in isolation. One theory of this "switch cost" is the failure-to-engage (FTE) theory, which posits that observed responses are a simple mixture of prepared and unprepared response strategies. The probability that participants use prepared processes can be manipulated experimentally (e.g., by changing preparation time). The FTE theory is a binary mixture model and therefore makes a strong prediction about the existence of fixed points in response time distributions. We found evidence contradicting this prediction, using data from 20 participants in a standard task-switching paradigm. In this article, we examine reasons for the failure of the FTE theory, and we demonstrate that a generalized version of FTE theory accommodates our data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Sciences, 3151 Social Sciences Plaza, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA. scottb@uci.edu
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Curtis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lehmann
authors.forename: Dane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Poboka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012718:Set, Psychology