Crossmodal Effects in Task Switching: Modality Compatibility with Vocal and Pedal Responses

Stephan, Denise Nadine; Josten, Johanna; Friedgen, Erik; Koch, Iring · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.5334/joc.129

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Summary

This study investigates the influence of modality compatibility on task-switching performance, specifically testing whether the effect generalizes to pedal responses and how it interacts with task frequency. Modality compatibility refers to the similarity between the stimulus modality and the modality of the anticipated sensory consequences of the response (e.g., auditory stimuli paired with vocal responses are compatible because vocalization produces auditory feedback). Previous research established that switching between modality-incompatible tasks (e.g., auditory-manual) incurs higher switch costs than switching between compatible tasks (e.g., auditory-vocal). However, it remained unclear if this effect applied to response modalities other than manual or vocal, and whether it depended on the frequency of task switches. The researchers conducted two experiments using a task-switching paradigm with visual and auditory stimuli paired with either vocal or pedal responses. Experiment 1 aimed to generalize the modality compatibility effect to pedal responses, hypothesizing that visual-pedal mappings are compatible (due to the visual nature of locomotion) while auditory-pedal mappings are incompatible. Sixteen participants performed single-task and task-switching blocks. Results showed no effect of modality compatibility in single-task conditions. However, in task-switching blocks, incompatible modality mappings (auditory-pedal and visual-vocal) resulted in significantly higher switch costs (112 ms) compared to compatible mappings (visual-pedal and auditory-vocal, 81 ms). This confirmed that the modality compatibility effect generalizes to pedal responses and arises specifically from the need to maintain competing task sets in working memory during switching. Experiment 2 examined whether the modality compatibility effect persists when task switches are rare, manipulating task frequency such that one task occurred seven times more frequently than the other. This experiment also used arbitrary stimulus-response mappings to rule out spatial compatibility effects. The results replicated the main finding: modality-incompatible tasks yielded higher switch costs (222 ms) than compatible tasks (136 ms), even when switches were infrequent. Furthermore, a significant three-way interaction indicated that the benefit of modality compatibility was robust regardless of task frequency. The data suggest that the sustained representation of potentially competing response modalities affects performance independent of how often tasks are switched. The findings conclude that modality compatibility is an emergent phenomenon in task switching driven by ideomotor backward linkages. When participants anticipate the sensory effects of a response, this activation primes the corresponding stimulus modality. In compatible tasks, this priming facilitates the current task; in incompatible tasks, it creates crosstalk with the competing task set, increasing interference. The study demonstrates that this mechanism is not limited to manual responses or frequent switching but is a general property of cognitive control when multiple modality mappings must be maintained simultaneously.

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• task switching