Citation

Elchlepp H, Best M, Lavric A, Monsell S. Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28(4): 470-481.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797616686855

PMID

28207350

Abstract

Task-switching experiments have documented a puzzling phenomenon: Advance warning of the switch reduces but does not eliminate the switch cost. Theoretical accounts have posited that the residual switch cost arises when one selects the relevant stimulus-response mapping, leaving earlier perceptual processes unaffected. We put this assumption to the test by seeking electrophysiological markers of encoding a perceptual dimension. Participants categorized a colored letter as a vowel or consonant or its color as "warm" or "cold." Orthogonally to the color manipulation, some colors were eight times more frequent than others, and the letters were in upper- or lowercase. Color frequency modulated the electroencephalogram amplitude at around 150 ms when participants repeated the color-classification task. When participants switched from the letter task to the color task, this effect was significantly delayed. Thus, even when prepared for, a task switch delays or prolongs encoding of the relevant perceptual dimension.

Language: en

Keywords

attention; cognition; evoked potentials; open data; open materials