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...

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Main Authors: Victor Mittelstädt, Hartmut Leuthold, Ian Grant Mackenzie, Tobin Dykstra, Eliot Hazeltine
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ubiquity Press 2023-01-01
Series:Journal of Cognition
Subjects:
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.
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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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