Disentangling the Roles of Cue Visibility and Knowledge in Adjusting Cognitive Control: A Preregistered Direct Replication of the Farooqui and Manly (2015) Study

Abstract

Recent research suggests that people can learn to link the control process of task switching to predictive cues so that switch costs are attenuated following informative precues of switch likelihood. However, the precise conditions that shape such contextual cuing of control are not well understood. Farooqui and Manly (2015) raised the possibility that cued task switching is more effective when cues of control demand are presented subliminally. In the current study, we aimed to replicate and extend these findings by more systematically manipulating whether cues of control demand are consciously perceived or are presented subliminally and whether participants have explicit prior knowledge of the cue meaning or acquire cue knowledge through experience. The direct replication was unsuccessful: We found no evidence for effective subliminal cuing but observed some evidence for participants reducing switch costs with explicit, supraliminal cues. Thus, cognitive control may be guided most effectively by explicitly understood and consciously perceived precues.