Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38695804›Full record

ArticleJournal of experimental psychology. General2024

Task switch costs scale with dissimilarity between task rules.

Bettina Bustos, J Toby Mordkoff, Eliot Hazeltine, Jiefeng Jiang

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of experimental psychology. General, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Hierarchical Reconfiguration of Neurocognitive Task Set Representations Mediates Cognitive Flexibility.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Human Beta Oscillations Reflect Magnitude and Fidelity of Priority Shifts in Working Memory.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Semantic Anchors Facilitate Task Encoding in Continual Learning.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Task switch costs scale with dissimilarity between task rules.Journal of experimental psychology. General · 2024
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Bettina BustosCognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa.
J Toby MordkoffCognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa.
Eliot HazeltineCognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa.
Jiefeng JiangCognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa.ORCID 0000-0002-4264-6382

Funding

Neurocognitive mechanisms of task representation reorganization during task learningR01MH131559 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF IOWA · PI Jiefeng Jiang · 2022 to 2026
$2.7M
NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH131559
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility enables humans to voluntarily switch tasks. Task switching requires replacing the previously active task representation with a new one, an operation that typically results in a switch cost. Thus, understanding cognitive flexibility requires understanding how tasks are represented in the brain. We hypothesize that task representations are cognitive map-like, such that the magnitude of the difference between task representations reflects their conceptual differences: The greater the distinction between the two task representations, the more updating is required. This hypothesis predicts that switch costs should increase with between task dissimilarity. To test this hypothesis, we use an experimental design that parametrically manipulates the similarity between task rules. We observe that response time scales with the dissimilarity between the task rules. The findings shed light on the organizational principles of task representations and extend the conventional binary task-switch effect (task repeat vs. switch) to a theoretical framework with parametric task switches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Indexed as

Executive FunctionPsychomotor PerformanceReaction TimeAdultCognitionFemaleHumansMaleYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID38695804
PMCPMC11250929

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Registered trials

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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.