Intertrial RT variability affects level of target‐related interference in cued task switching

Provost, Alexander; Jamadar, Sharna D.; Heathcote, Andrew; Brown, Scott; Karayanidis, Frini · 2017 · Psychophysiology

DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12971

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Summary

This study investigates whether advance preparation in cued task switching reduces target-related interference, a key component of residual switch costs. While proactive control (advance preparation) is known to reduce overall switch costs, a residual cost persists even with ample preparation time. The authors sought to determine if this residual cost stems from target properties that elicit interference resistant to proactive control, or from failures to engage preparation. Specifically, they examined if the level of preparation, indexed by response time (RT), modulates the magnitude of interference effects on event-related potentials (ERPs). The researchers analyzed data from 24 participants performing a task-switching paradigm involving letter and number classification. Targets were neutral, congruent, or incongruent bivalent stimuli. Using Orthogonal Polynomial Trend Analysis (OPTA), the authors extracted target-locked ERPs across the RT distribution to isolate trials with varying levels of preparation. This method allowed for the examination of ERP components—specifically early N2, late N2, and P3b—as a function of RT deciles, trial type (switch vs. repeat), and target congruence. This approach provided a pure measure of target-related interference uncontaminated by intermittent failures to engage proactive control. The results indicated that target congruence significantly affected late N2 and P3b amplitudes, but these effects did not interact with trial type. This suggests that target properties impact switch and repeat trials equally and do not contribute to the differential residual switch cost. However, P3b amplitude was larger and latency later for switch trials compared to repeat trials, with this difference increasing as RT increased. Crucially, even the fastest, most prepared trials showed significant residual switch costs and target-related interference. The congruence effects on ERPs did not diminish with faster RTs, indicating that neither general nor switch-specific preparation ameliorates the effects of target-driven interference. These findings imply that slower, less prepared responses are associated with greater target-related interference during identification and processing, as well as more difficult decision processes. Importantly, the study concludes that advance preparation cannot eliminate the interference caused by target properties. This highlights the limitations of proactive control in resolving target-specific conflict and underscores the necessity of reactive control processes. The integration of RT distribution analyses with ERP and OPTA offers a theoretical advance in understanding trial-by-trial variability in cognitive control, demonstrating that residual switch costs are partly driven by interference that is impervious to advance preparation.

Key finding

Advance preparation reduces response time switch costs but does not eliminate target-related interference, as evidenced by persistent congruence effects on late N2 and P3b ERP components even in the fastest, most prepared trials.

Methodology

lab_experiment

Sample size: 21

Provenance

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Topics

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• task switching