The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching
There has been an increasing interest in uncovering the mechanisms underpinning how people decide which task to perform at a given time. Many studies suggest that task representations are crucial in guiding such voluntary task selection behavior, which is primarily reflected in a bias to select task...
Main Authors: | , , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2023-01-01
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Series: | Journal of Cognition |
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Online Access: | https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/255 |
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author | Victor Mittelstädt Hartmut Leuthold Ian Grant Mackenzie Tobin Dykstra Eliot Hazeltine |
author_facet | Victor Mittelstädt Hartmut Leuthold Ian Grant Mackenzie Tobin Dykstra Eliot Hazeltine |
author_sort | Victor Mittelstädt |
collection | DOAJ |
description | There has been an increasing interest in uncovering the mechanisms underpinning how people decide which task to perform at a given time. Many studies suggest that task representations are crucial in guiding such voluntary task selection behavior, which is primarily reflected in a bias to select task repetitions over task switches. However, it is not yet clear whether the task-specific motor effectors are also a crucial component of task representations when deciding to switch tasks. Across three experiments using different voluntary task switching (VTS) procedures, we show that a greater overlap in task representations with a task-to-finger mapping than task-to-hand mapping increases participants’ switching behavior (Exp. 1 and Exp. 2), but not when they were instructed to randomly select tasks (Exp. 3). Thus, task-specific stimulus-response associations can change the way people mentally represent tasks and influence switching behavior, suggesting that motor effectors should be considered as a component of task representations in biasing cognitive flexibility. |
first_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:41:14Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-8e958faf9f534019875c50137453cbdb |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2514-4820 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:41:14Z |
publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
publisher | Ubiquity Press |
record_format | Article |
series | Journal of Cognition |
spelling | doaj.art-8e958faf9f534019875c50137453cbdb2023-02-03T14:08:11ZengUbiquity PressJournal of Cognition2514-48202023-01-016110.5334/joc.255268The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task SwitchingVictor Mittelstädt0Hartmut Leuthold1Ian Grant Mackenzie2Tobin Dykstra3Eliot Hazeltine4University of TübingenUniversity of TübingenUniversity of TübingenUniversity of IowaUniversity of IowaThere has been an increasing interest in uncovering the mechanisms underpinning how people decide which task to perform at a given time. Many studies suggest that task representations are crucial in guiding such voluntary task selection behavior, which is primarily reflected in a bias to select task repetitions over task switches. However, it is not yet clear whether the task-specific motor effectors are also a crucial component of task representations when deciding to switch tasks. Across three experiments using different voluntary task switching (VTS) procedures, we show that a greater overlap in task representations with a task-to-finger mapping than task-to-hand mapping increases participants’ switching behavior (Exp. 1 and Exp. 2), but not when they were instructed to randomly select tasks (Exp. 3). Thus, task-specific stimulus-response associations can change the way people mentally represent tasks and influence switching behavior, suggesting that motor effectors should be considered as a component of task representations in biasing cognitive flexibility.https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/255cognitive controldecision makingvoluntary task switchingstimulus-response mappingtask representations |
spellingShingle | Victor Mittelstädt Hartmut Leuthold Ian Grant Mackenzie Tobin Dykstra Eliot Hazeltine The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching Journal of Cognition cognitive control decision making voluntary task switching stimulus-response mapping task representations |
title | The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching |
title_full | The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching |
title_fullStr | The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching |
title_full_unstemmed | The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching |
title_short | The Role of Effector-Specific Task Representations in Voluntary Task Switching |
title_sort | role of effector specific task representations in voluntary task switching |
topic | cognitive control decision making voluntary task switching stimulus-response mapping task representations |
url | https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/255 |
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