Residual costs in task switching: Testing the failure-to-engage hypothesis

Nieuwenhuis, Sander; Monsell, Stephen · 2002 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3758/bf03196259

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Summary

This paper investigates the origins of "residual costs" in task switching, a phenomenon where reaction times (RTs) remain slower on trials requiring a task change even when participants have ample time to prepare. While switch costs decrease with longer preparation intervals, a residual cost persists that cannot be eliminated by further preparation. The authors test De Jong’s (2000) "failure-to-engage" (FTE) hypothesis, which posits that this residual cost arises not from an intrinsic limitation of cognitive reconfiguration or post-stimulus processing, but from a probabilistic failure to complete advance preparation on a subset of trials. To evaluate this hypothesis, the authors applied a two-state mixture model to data from a previous study (Rogers & Monsell, 1995) and a new experiment. The model assumes that RT distributions on prepared switch trials are a mixture of "prepared" trials (similar to non-switch trials) and "unprepared" trials (similar to short-interval switch trials). In the new experiment, 12 participants performed digit and letter classification tasks with predictable task sequences. Crucially, the design included strong performance incentives and detailed feedback to maximize motivation for advance preparation, and shorter trial blocks to minimize fatigue. The response-stimulus interval (RSI) varied between 150 and 1,200 msec. The results showed that the reduced-mixture model (assuming no constant post-stimulus cost) provided a good fit for both datasets. In the new experiment, strong incentives reduced the mean residual switch cost from 115 msec to 69 msec and increased the estimated probability of successful advance preparation ($\alpha$) from 0.49 to 0.64. However, the residual cost remained significant, and the preparation probability did not approach unity. Statistical analysis confirmed that adding a parameter for constant post-stimulus reconfiguration did not significantly improve the model fit, supporting the FTE hypothesis over theories attributing residual costs to mandatory post-stimulus processes or task-set inertia. The findings suggest that residual switch costs are primarily attributable to the probabilistic failure to engage in advance intention activation, rather than an unavoidable exogenous control process. However, because even highly motivated participants failed to prepare on approximately one-third of trials, the authors conclude there is an intrinsic limitation to the ability to achieve endogenous preparation on every trial. This challenges theories relying on persistent task-set inertia or mandatory post-stimulus rule activation, implying that executive control involves stochastic failures in retrieving or maintaining task sets, potentially linked to long-term memory retrieval processes.

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• task switching