Investigating the contribution of task and response repetitions to the sequential modulations of attentional cueing effects

Ansorge, Ulrich; Gozli, Davood G.; Goller, Florian · 2017 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1007/s00426-017-0950-y

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Summary

This study investigates the underlying mechanisms of the "validity sequence effect," a phenomenon where the attentional benefit of a valid cue (appearing at the target location) is stronger following a valid trial than an invalid one. The authors aimed to distinguish between three competing explanations: trial-to-trial priming, event-file coding, and retention/suppression of cue utility. Priming and event-file coding theories predict that this sequence effect should rely on the repetition of stimulus or response features between consecutive trials. In contrast, the retention/suppression account suggests that participants retain helpful cues or suppress harmful ones independently of feature repetitions. To test these hypotheses, the researchers conducted three experiments using a visual search task where participants switched between color and shape discrimination tasks. Peripheral cues preceded targets, creating valid or invalid conditions. Experiment 1 used distinct cues for different tasks, while Experiment 2 modified target colors to allow for potential feature priming. Experiment 3 employed different cues for different stimulus-response rules to strongly distinguish task sets. The design orthogonally manipulated trial-to-trial task repetition (repetition vs. switch) and response repetition (repetition vs. switch) to determine if the validity sequence effect persisted when features changed. The results demonstrated that the validity sequence effect was robust and did not disappear when tasks or responses switched from one trial to the next in Experiments 1 and 2. Specifically, the advantage of valid over invalid trials remained significant even under task-switching conditions, contradicting the predictions of strict priming and event-file coding accounts, which require full feature repetitions. However, in Experiment 3, where tasks were strongly distinguished by unique cues, the validity sequence effect did not survive task-switching, supporting the event-coding account under conditions of high task distinctiveness. These findings suggest that the validity sequence effect is not solely driven by low-level feature priming or rigid event-file coding. Instead, it reflects a flexible cognitive process where participants retain recently helpful cues or suppress harmful ones, independent of specific stimulus or response repetitions. The extent to which this effect relies on event-file coding depends on the task structure and how participants represent the relationship between successive trials. This highlights the role of task-set representation in modulating attentional cueing effects.

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• task switching