Abstract
In our recent article (Schmidt, Liefooghe, & De Houwer, 2020, this volume), we presented an adaptation of the Parallel Episodic Processing (PEP) model for simulating instruction following and task-switching behaviour. In this paper, we respond to five commentaries on our article: Monsell & McLaren (2020), Koch & Lavric (2020), Meiran (2020), Longman (2020), and Pfeuffer (2020). The commentaries discuss potential future modelling goals, deeper reflections on cognitive control, and some potential challenges for our theoretical perspective and associated model. We focus primarily on the latter. In particular, we clarify that we (a) acknowledge the role of cognitive control in task switching, and (b) are arguing that certain task-switching effects do not serve as a good measure of said cognitive control. We also discuss some ambiguities in terminological uses (e.g., the meaning of “task-set reconfiguration”), along with some future experimental and modelling research directions.
Highlights
Koch and Lavric (2020) suggest that we “are on a sort of ‘mission’ against cognitive control of task-set[s]”
Hypothesized influences of cognitive control on the size of the switch cost does not argue against our perspective
Generic executive processes may play a role in task switching, but our work presents a new perspective on executive control and highlights other biases that may have more explanatory power in explaining task switching phenomena than previously assumed
Summary
Koch and Lavric (2020) suggest that we “are on a sort of ‘mission’ against cognitive control of task-set[s]”. The observation that switch costs are absent when participants are given compound cue instructions (i.e., rather than abstract task instructions; Dreisbach, Goschke, & Haider, 2006, 2007; Forrest, Monsell, & McLaren, 2014), can be accommodated by PEP by assuming that executive processes impact on the operation of memory and binding processes. In this case, the goal of the participant is different and within PEP this could be implemented by coding the cue-target-response combinations into the instructions, Art. 28, page 2 of 6. Is that the PEP model has not (yet) specified the implementation of task goals other than “do Task X”, which is an interesting direction for future modelling research
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