title: Task switching among two or four tasks: effects of a short-term variation of the number of candidate tasks.
abstract: In two experiments, using a modified task-cueing paradigm, participants switched among a set of four tasks that was on some trials reduced to two by a pre-cue preceding the task cue. A pre-cue temporarily restricting the options to two candidate tasks facilitated performance on switch trials to a much larger extent than on repeat trials. This observation is interpreted as an indication of a short-term restructuring of a global task representation by implementing antagonistic constraints among the representations of the two remaining candidate tasks.
authors: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Ardeystraße 67, 44139, Dortmund, Germany, kleinsorge@ifado.de.
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Kleinsorge
authors: Juliane
authors: J
authors: Scheil
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult