Abstract
Evidence from behavioral and physiological studies suggests attentional weighting of stimulus information from different sources, according to task demands. We investigated the adoption of task-specific attentional sets by administering a flanker task, which required responding to a centrally presented letter while ignoring two adjacent letters, and a same-different judgment task, which required a homogenous/heterogeneous classification concerning the complete three-letter string. To assess the distribution of attentional weights across the letter locations we intermixed trials of a visual search task, in which a target stimulus occurred randomly in any of these locations. Search task reaction times displayed a stronger center-to periphery gradient, indicating focusing of visual attention on the central location, when the search task was intermixed into blocks of trials of the flanker task than into blocks of trials of the same-different task (Experiment 1) and when a cue indicated the likely occurrence of the flanker task as compared to the likely occurrence the same-different task (Experiment 2). These findings demonstrate flexible adoption of task-specific sets of visual attention that can be implemented during preparation. In addition, responses in the intermixed search task trials were faster and (marginally significantly) more error-prone after preparation for a (letter) task repetition than for a task switch, suggesting that response caution is reduced during preparation for a task repetition.
Highlights
In task switching studies participants frequently alternate between different choice reaction time (RT) tasks afforded by the same stimuli
RTs were shortest for centrally presented targets in the Eriksen Task blocks, longest for targets presented in non-central locations in the Eriksen Task blocks, and intermediate for all locations in the Same/Different Task blocks
In Experiment 2, trial-to-trial persistence and preparation of task-specific attentional sets were investigated by intermixing the Eriksen task and the Same/Different task in the same block of trials and presenting cues that indicated the upcoming task in advance of the imperative stimulus
Summary
In task switching studies participants frequently alternate between different choice reaction time (RT) tasks afforded by the same stimuli. These studies have provided ample evidence that task performance, in particular in task switch trials (i.e., trials in which the to-be-executed task differs from the task of the directly preceding trial), benefits from increasing the length of a preparation interval during which participants have foreknowledge about the identity of the upcoming task (for overviews, see Karayanidis et al, 2010; Kiesel et al, 2010) This facilitation is usually attributed to task-set preparation, that is, to a set of processes that configure the cognitive system to a state that enhances speed and/or accuracy of processing an upcoming stimulus according to the requirements of the currently relevant task. Given that preparation benefits are observed in task switching situations in which tasks do not differ regarding the relevant perceptual attributes of the stimuli (e.g., switching between classifying visually presented digits regarding their parity versus their magnitude, Schuch and Koch, 2003), assuming a post-perceptual locus of the preparation effect might be considered a more parsimonious account
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