Is task switching nothing but cue priming? Evidence from ERPs.
Recent findings suggesting that switch costs in the task-cuing paradigm are largely attributable to a change in the task-indicating cue have been interpreted in terms of a priming model of task-switch costs (Logan & Bundesen, 2003). According to this explanation, participants do not actually switch task sets, but merely use a cue-stimulus compound to disambiguate competing response tendencies associated with bivalent stimuli. Here, we report an event-related potential (ERP) experiment that provides evidence against this notion. In a paradigm with a 2:1 mapping between cues and tasks, we show that cue-switch and task-switch effects are dissociable on a neurophysiological level, indicating that task switching is more than a switch in the task-indicating cue. Moreover, a systematic analysis of the ERPs during the cue-stimulus interval suggests that updating processes can run in advance, before the stimulus is presented.
Jost
Kerstin
K
Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany. jost@staff.uni-marburg.de
Mayr
Ulrich
U
Rösler
Frank
F
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values