Behavioural and electrophysiological measures of task switching during single and mixed-task conditions

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.11.009

Biological Psychology

Volume 72, Issue 3, June 2006, Pages 278-290

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.11.009 Get rights and content

Abstract

In order to understand how the brain prepares for and executes a switch in task demand, we measured reaction time (RT), accuracy, and event-related brain potentials associated with performance in single and mixed-task blocks using a cued design. Our results show that trials which repeat in a mixed-task block (repeat trials) were more demanding than trials which repeated in a single-task block, as reflected by the presence of a RT mixing cost and by the presence of a smaller target-locked positivity (P3b) on repeat trials. Within a mixed-task block, repeat and switch trials also differed, where repeat trials showed evidence of greater preparation (larger cue-locked negativity), more efficient target processing (larger target-locked P3b), and shorter RTs. In addition, the cue-locked negativity difference remained despite equating repeat and switch trials on RT, suggesting that this negativity difference is specific to the switching process. Our results are discussed in light of existing models of task switching.

Section snippets

Participants

Twenty young adults (6 men and 14 women; mean age = 24.5 years, S.D. = 3.4) participated in this study. Eighteen reported being right handed and two reported being left handed. All participants were recruited from either the Concordia University student population or through word of mouth and all reported being in good health. Informed consent was obtained from all participants and each was remunerated $20 for his/her participation.

Materials and apparatus

The target stimuli consisted of 16 concrete nouns (beetle, nail,

Behavioural data reduction

Prior to any cost analyses, RTs were trimmed for each of the five blocks such that RTs greater than or smaller than 2.5 standard deviations of the block mean or less than 200 ms were eliminated. This represented no more than a 7.4% loss of trials in any given block. RT data were analysed only for correct trials that followed at least two correct responses. In order to pool data, two analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to determine whether RT and accuracy scores for repeat and switch

Behavioural data

As expected, RT data revealed significant mixing and local switch costs, indicating that homogeneous trials were responded to more quickly than repeat trials, which in turn were responded to more quickly than switch trials. Accuracy was uniformly high and did not differ between trial types. Our behavioural results are largely consistent with past findings. That is, performance is poorer when having to switch between different tasks (Karayanidis et al., 2003, Meiran et al., 2000, Rogers and

Acknowledgements

A portion of these data was reported previously at the Eight International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON8), Porquerolles Island, France, September 9–15, 2002. This study was supported by a grant awarded to N.A. Phillips from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). We would like to thank S. Gagnon, T.S. Choy, and L. Ingenito for their assistance in subject testing, data processing and graphical processing. We are grateful to our study participants for

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Behavioural and electrophysiological measures of task switching during single and mixed-task conditions

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Materials and apparatus

Behavioural data reduction

Behavioural data

Acknowledgements

Brain Research Protocols

Neuron

International Journal of Psychophysiology

Biological Psychology

Electroencephalogrophy and Clinical Neurophysiology

Acta Psychologica

Cognitive Psychology

Biological Psychology

Cognitive Brain Research

International Journal of Psychophysiology

Neuroimage

Switching intentional set: exploring the dynamic control of tasks

Who comes first? The role of the prefrontal and parietal cortex in cognitive control

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

An intention-activation account of residual local switch costs

Mental set and shift

Archives of Psychology

P300: a model of the variables controlling its amplitude

Annals of the New York Academy of Science

A triarchic model of P300 amplitude

Psychophysiology

On the neural generators of the P300 component of the event-related potential

Psychophysiology