ArticleJournal of cognition2021
Time-Based Transition Expectancy in Task Switching: Do We Need to Know the Task to Switch to?
Article in Journal of cognition, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- It's Hard to Prepare for Task Novelty: Cueing the Novelty of Upcoming Tasks Does Not Facilitate Task Performance.Journal of cognition · 2025Article
- Investigating time-based expectancy beyond binary timing scenarios: evidence from a paradigm employing three predictive pre-target intervals.Psychological research · 2022Article
- The State-of-the-art of Research into Human Multitasking: An Editorial.Journal of cognition · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent research has shown that humans are able to implicitly adapt to time-transition contingencies in a task-switching paradigm, indicated by better performance in trials where the task transition (switch vs. repetition) is validly predicted by the pre-target interval compared to trials with invalidly predicted transitions. As participants switched between only two different tasks, not only the transition, but also the specific task was predictable; at least indirectly when taking into account the temporally predicted transition in the current trial together with the task in the previous trial. In order to investigate if the time-based expectancy effect for transition in previous studies was due to a specific task preparation or due to an unspecific transition preparation, three different tasks were used in the present study. One of two possible pre-target intervals (500 and 1500 ms) predicted a task switch in the upcoming trial with 90 % probability, whereas the other interval predicted a task repetition with 90 % probability. Results revealed that participants were able to prepare both upcoming repetition as well as switch requirements based on predictive pre-target intervals. This means that humans seem to be able to prepare a task switch in a rather unspecific manner, most likely by inhibiting the task just performed in the previous trial. By suggesting a two-stage preparation model in which switches as well as repetitions benefit both from time-based transition expectancy, although apparently with different cognitive processes being involved, the present study provides important impulses for future research on the cognitive processes underlying human task-switching behavior.
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Registered trials
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