Feature Integration and Task Switching: Diminished Switch Costs after Controlling for Stimulus, Response, and Cue Repetitions

Abstract

This report presents data from two versions of the task switching procedure in which the separate influence of stimulus repetitions, response key repetitions, conceptual response repetitions, cue repetitions, task repetitions, and congruency are considered. Experiment 1 used a simple alternating runs procedure with parity judgments of digits and consonant/vowel decisions of letters as the two tasks. Results revealed sizable effects of stimulus and response repetitions, and controlling for these effects reduced the switch cost. Experiment 2 was a cued version of the task switch paradigm with parity and magnitude judgments of digits as the two tasks. Results again revealed large effects of stimulus and response repetitions, in addition to cue repetition effects. Controlling for these effects again reduced the switch cost. Congruency did not interact with our novel “unbiased” measure of switch costs. We discuss how the task switch paradigm might be thought of as a more complex version of the feature integration paradigm and propose an episodic learning account of the effect. We further consider to what extent appeals to higher-order control processes might be unnecessary and propose that controls for feature integration biases should be standard practice in task switching experiments.

The Parallel Episodic Processing (PEP) model 2.0: A single computational model of stimulus-response binding, contingency learning, power curves, and mixing costs

“…However, both effects have been argued to be systematically biased by exactly the sorts of learning biases discussed in the current report (see Schmidt, 2013b;Schmidt, Notebaert, & Van den Bussche, 2015). For instance, proportion congruent effects are often biased by contingencies (Hazeltine & Mordkoff, 2014;Schmidt, 2013a;Schmidt & Besner, 2008) and/or rhythmic response biases (Kinoshita et al, 2011;Schmidt, 2013c).…”

“…Future work might aim to explore whether our simple learning account is sufficient, or whether attentional adaptation to conflict plays an additional role in these phenomena. This is already a heated debate in the attentional control literature (Atalay & Misirlisoy, 2012;Bugg, Jacoby, & Chanani, 2011;Crump & Milliken, 2009;Hazeltine & Mordkoff, 2014;Levin & Tzelgov, 2016;Notebaert & Verguts, 2007;Schmidt, De Schryver, & Weissman, 2014;Schmidt et al, 2015) and the PEP model might serve as a useful reference for how far one can go with episodic learning alone.…”

“…In a similar vein, in task switching experiments participants are asked to respond to different stimulus dimensions on different trials (Jersild, 1927; for reviews, see Kiesel et al, 2010;Monsell, 2003;Vandierendonck, Liefooghe, & Verbruggen, 2010). Binding effects can also play a major role in task switching experiments (Goschke, 2000;Logan & Bundesen, 2003;Schmidt & Liefooghe, 2016), so task switching experiments are also relevant for the PEP model. All of these paradigms, however, require a model that allows for stimulusresponse mappings that are not one-to-one.…”

“…In addition to practice curves, episodic memory models have been proposed for a broad range of other performance phenomena, including contingency learning (Schmidt, Crump, Cheesman, & Besner, 2007;Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012a, 2012c, 2012d, 2016aSchmidt, De Houwer, & Besner, 2010), feature binding effects (Frings, Rothermund, & Wentura, 2007;Hommel, 1998), negative priming (Rothermund, Wentura, & De Houwer, 2005), proportion congruent effects (Schmidt, 2013a(Schmidt, , 2013b, congruency sequence effects (Hommel et al, 2004;Mayr, Awh, & Laurey, 2003;Mordkoff, 2012;Schmidt & De Houwer, 2011), evaluative conditioning (Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012b), task switch costs (Logan & Bundesen, 2003Logan & Schneider, 2006a, 2006bLogan, Schneider, & Bundesen, 2007;Schmidt & Liefooghe, 2016;, rhythmic responding (Kinoshita et al, 2008;Kinoshita et al, 2011;Mozer et al, 2004;Schmidt, 2013cSchmidt, , 2014Schmidt, Lemercier, et al, 2014;Schmidt & Weissman, 2016), and various other phenomena.…”

Does Task Activation in Task Switching Influence Inhibition or Episodic Interference?

“…The current work, and that of Grange et al (2017), sits within a broader context of work demonstrating a role of episodic memory retrieval in explaining (or at least, contributing to) key effects in the task switching literature. For example, work has shown a considerable contribution of episodic (and semantic) memory retrieval to the task switch cost-the observed slowing of RTs on task switch trials compared to task repetition trials-in the explicitly-cued task switching paradigm (Altmann & Gray, 2008;Logan, 2003;Schmidt & Liefooghe, 2016;Schneider & Logan, 2005). The observed reduction of the task switch cost with inreasing RCI-once attributed to the time-based decay of task-set activation (Meiran, Chorev, & Sapir, 2000)-has been shown to be attributable to temporal distinctiveness effects during automatic, cue-based retrieval of task-sets from episodic memory (Grange, 2016;Grange & Cross, 2015;Horoufchin et al, 2011).…”