09:00 - 10:30
Parallel sessions 4
09:00 - 10:30
Room: HSZ - N1
Chair/s:
Alexander Berger, Patricia Hirsch
Multitasking is a frequent part of everyday life, requiring us to switch between different tasks or engage in multiple tasks simultaneously. Such situations place high demands on cognitive control. A key aspect of this control is the regulation of task sets: internal representations that guide behavior in accordance with current task demands. Using task switching, probe task and dual-tasking methods, this symposium brings together different paradigms for investigating the flexible control of task sets, thereby integrating different perspectives on the preparation, inhibition, and adaptation of task sets. We present studies on how task sets are shaped by anticipatory processes, how they may be suppressed to reduce interference, and how control mechanisms flexibly adjust based on recent experience or contextual demands. The individual talks address a range of questions within this framework: one study investigates inhibitory processes triggered by mere task preparation; another explores how changes in cue-task mappings affect reconfiguration after practice. A third contribution examines the origins of asymmetries in task switching involving different perspectives. Extending the focus to situations involving overlapping task demands, further talks investigate the dissipation of dual-task representations and how sequential demands modulate control in dual-task settings. Together, the symposium provides an integrative perspective on the dynamic regulation of task sets and aims to advance our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that support cognitive flexibility and efficient multitasking in complex environments.
Submission 126
Independent Mechanisms of Cognitive Control in Dual-Task Settings: Evidence from Task-Pair Sequence and Response-Conflict Manipulations
SymposiumTalk-05
Presented by: Patricia Hirsch
Patricia Hirsch 1, Iring Koch 1, Tilo Strobach 2
1 Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
2 MSH Hamburg, Germany
In dual-task situations, the two component tasks are assumed to be represented jointly within a single cognitive representation, termed task-pair set. Switching between task-pairs typically incurs performance costs, reflecting the need to reconfigure the active task-pair set or to overcome proactive interference. Recent findings have shown that these task-pair switch costs are smaller after a task-pair switch than after a task-pair repetition, reflecting a sequential modulation of task-pair switch costs. The present study investigated whether this modulation is influenced by adaptive control adjustments to response-level conflict. To this end, we varied the proportion of incongruent trials within a block. Incongruent trials required spatially distinct responses in the component tasks, whereas congruent trials required spatially overlapping responses. We replicated the standard task-pair switch costs and their sequential modulation. However, neither effect was influenced by the proportion of incongruent trials. This finding suggests that when participants engage more proactive control to handle frequent response conflicts, task-pair set control remains unaffected. Thus, adaptive control over response conflict and task-pair selection appear to rely on independent mechanisms.