Task set reconfiguration following masked and unmasked task cues

Berger, Alexander; Kiefer, Markus · 2025 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2025.103850

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Summary

This study investigates whether task sets activated by unconsciously perceived (masked) task cues undergo reconfiguration and inhibition during task switching, a process well-established for consciously perceived cues. While masked stimuli are known to trigger cognitive control processes, it remained unclear if these unconscious task sets require inhibitory mechanisms to be overridden when switching to a new task. The authors hypothesized that if unconscious task sets are subject to inhibition, they would exhibit behavioral and electrophysiological signatures similar to those of conscious task sets. To test this, Berger and Kiefer employed a task-switching paradigm with 69 participants, measuring both behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs). The design included three types of trials in the n-2 position: executed tasks, unmasked cue-only trials, and masked cue-only trials. Participants switched between semantic and perceptual classification tasks, with a lexical decision task inserted in the n-1 position. The study assessed n-2 repetition costs—a behavioral marker of task set inhibition—by comparing performance when a task repeated after two trials (ABA sequence) versus when it switched (CBA sequence). Additionally, ERP components, specifically cue-locked positivities, were analyzed to detect neural correlates of task set reconfiguration during both preparation and execution phases. The experiment utilized a between-subjects manipulation of compatible versus incompatible task cues to account for prior findings regarding cue efficacy. The results demonstrated that unmasked task cues triggered significant n-2 repetition costs, indicating that consciously prepared task sets were inhibited when switching to a new task. Electrophysiologically, a cue-locked positivity component reflected increased reconfiguration demands during both task preparation and execution for unmasked cues. In contrast, masked cue-only trials produced no evidence of task set reconfiguration. There were no significant n-2 repetition costs or benefits, nor were there any modulations in ERP components associated with task set inhibition or reconfiguration following masked cues. These findings held regardless of cue compatibility or practice effects. The study concludes that task set reconfiguration, including the inhibition of previously activated task sets, is likely tied to conscious task set activation. The absence of inhibitory effects for masked cues suggests that once an unconscious process is initiated, it is not terminated by the same inhibitory mechanisms that govern conscious cognitive control. This distinction implies that unconscious task activations may persist without the regulatory oversight required for conscious task switching, highlighting a fundamental difference in how conscious and unconscious cognitive processes are managed and updated.

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• task switching