title: Long-term memory and the control of attentional control.
abstract: Task-switch costs and in particular the switch-cost asymmetry (i.e., the larger costs of switching to a dominant than a non-dominant task) are usually explained in terms of trial-to-trial carry-over of task-specific control settings. Here we argue that task switches are just one example of situations that trigger a transition from working-memory maintenance to updating, thereby opening working memory to interference from long-term memory. We used a new paradigm that requires selecting a spatial location either on the basis of a central cue (i.e., endogenous control of attention) or a peripheral, sudden onset (i.e., exogenous control of attention). We found a strong cost asymmetry that occurred even after short interruptions of otherwise single-task blocks (Exp. 1-3), but that was much stronger when participants had experienced the competing task under conditions of conflict (Exp. 1-2). Experiment 3 showed that the asymmetric costs were due to interruptions per se, rather than to associative interference tied to specific interruption activities. Experiment 4 generalized the basic pattern across interruptions varying in length or control demands and Experiment 5 across primary tasks with response-selection conflict rather than attentional conflict. Combined, the results support a model in which costs of selecting control settings arise when (a) potentially interfering memory traces have been encoded in long-term memory and (b) working-memory is forced from a maintenance mode into an updating mode (e.g., through task interruptions), thereby allowing unwanted retrieval of the encoded memory traces.
authors.affiliation: University of Oregon, United States. Electronic address: mayr@uoregon.edu.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Mayr
authors.affiliation: University of Oregon, United States.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kuhns
authors.affiliation: University of Oregon, United States.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hubbard
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D056344:Executive Function; D006801:Humans; D057567:Memory, Long-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Executive control; Task switching