ArticlePsychological research2018
What is a task? An ideomotor perspective.
Article in Psychological research, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- An examination of sustained attention during complex multitasking scenarios.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- Task integration and anticipation in complex, continuous motor tasks.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Can frequent long stimulus onset ansynchronies (SOAs) foster the representation of two separated task-sets in dual-tasking?Psychological research · 2024Article
- Task integration in complex, bimanual sequence learning tasks.Psychological research · 2024Article
- Skillful and strategic navigation in soccer - a motor-cognitive dual-task approach for the evaluation of a dribbling task under different cognitive load conditions.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Element-level features in conjoint episodes in dual-tasking.Psychological research · 2023Article
- Learning of across- and within-task contingencies modulates partial-repetition costs in dual-tasking.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Multiple Routes to Control in the Prime-Target Task: Congruence Sequence Effects Emerge Due to Modulation of Irrelevant Prime Activity and Utilization of Temporal Order Information.Journal of cognition · 2021Article
- No impact of instructions and feedback on task integration in motor learning.Memory & cognition · 2021Article
- Ways to Improve Multitasking: Effects of Predictability after Single- and Dual-Task Training.Journal of cognition · 2021Article
- The impact of predictability on dual-task performance and implications for resource-sharing accounts.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2021Article
- The Problem of the Task. Pseudo-Interactivity as an Experimental Paradigm of Phenomenological Psychology.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- No sex difference in an everyday multitasking paradigm.Psychological research · 2019Article
- Putting a stereotype to the test: The case of gender differences in multitasking costs in task-switching and dual-task situations.PloS one · 2019Article
- The Psychophysiology of Action: A Multidisciplinary Endeavor for Integrating Action and Cognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
- Implicit and Explicit Knowledge Both Improve Dual Task Performance in a Continuous Pursuit Tracking Task.Frontiers in psychology · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Although multitasking has been the subject of a large number of papers and experiments, the term task is still not well defined. In this opinion paper, we adopt the ideomotor perspective to define the term task and distinguish it from the terms goal and action. In our opinion, actions are movements executed by an actor to achieve a concrete goal. Concrete goals are represented as anticipated sensory consequences that are associated with an action in an ideomotor manner. Concrete goals are nested in a hierarchy of more and more abstract goals, which form the context of the corresponding action. Finally, tasks are depersonalized goals, i.e., goals that should be achieved by someone. However, tasks can be assigned to a specific person or group of persons, either by a third party or by the person or the group of persons themselves. By accepting this assignment, the depersonalized task becomes a personal goal. In our opinion, research on multitasking needs to confine its scope to the analysis of concrete tasks, which result in concrete goals as anticipated sensory consequences of the corresponding action. We further argue that the distinction between dual- and single-tasking is dependent on the subjective conception of the task assignment, the goal representation and previous experience. Finally, we conclude that it is not the tasks, but the performing of the tasks, i.e. the actions that cause costs in multitasking experiments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.