Modeling Task Switching Without Switching Tasks: A Short-Term Priming Account of Explicitly Cued Performance.

Schneider, Darryl W.; Logan, Gordon D. · 2005 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.134.3.343

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Summary

This paper challenges the prevailing view that task-switching costs arise from executive control processes, specifically the reconfiguration of task sets. Schneider and Logan propose an alternative "short-term priming account" to explain performance in explicitly cued task-switching paradigms. They argue that observed switch costs and related effects can be fully explained by two bottom-up mechanisms: the priming of cue encoding via residual activation in short-term memory (STM) and the compound cue retrieval of responses from long-term memory. This approach suggests that no executive control mechanism is required to switch tasks. The authors developed a mathematical model based on Logan’s instance theory of attention and memory, integrating theories of visual attention, categorization, and memory retrieval. The model posits that cue encoding is a race between comparing the current cue to its transient representation in STM and its permanent representation in long-term memory. The rate of comparison to STM is modulated by residual activation from the previous trial. For example, if the same cue repeats, strong residual activation facilitates faster encoding (repetition priming). If the task repeats but the cue changes, intermediate activation from associated cues facilitates encoding (associative priming). If the task alternates, little residual activation exists, resulting in slower encoding. Response selection occurs via compound cue retrieval, where the cue and target combine to retrieve response categories based on associative strengths. The model was tested against data from three experiments using the explicit task-cuing procedure. Participants classified single-digit targets as odd/even or high/low, with multiple cues assigned to each task to disentangle cue repetitions, task repetitions, and task alternations. The experiments manipulated cue-target congruency and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). The mathematical model successfully fit the data, accounting for the repeated cue encoding benefit, the switch cost (slower performance on task alternations vs. repetitions), the reduction in switch cost with increased preparation time (SOA), and cue-target congruency effects. The model demonstrated that these phenomena emerge from differential priming of cue encoding and varying probabilities of retrieving correct responses, without invoking task-set reconfiguration. The significance of this work lies in its challenge to the interpretation of switch costs as a measure of executive control duration. By demonstrating that a set of basic psychological processes—specifically short-term priming and compound retrieval—can produce effects traditionally attributed to executive control, the authors weaken the evidence for task-set reconfiguration in explicitly cued tasks. The findings suggest that the explicit task-cuing procedure may not be a valid tool for studying executive control, as performance can be explained by automatic, associative processes. This provides a more parsimonious account of task-switching performance and highlights the importance of distinguishing between cue-related processing and genuine task-set switching.

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Topics

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• task switching
• executive function