Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Psychol Bull. 2010 Jul;136(4):601-26. doi: 10.1037/a0019791.
The task-switching paradigm is being increasingly used as a tool for studying cognitive control and task coordination. Different procedural variations have been developed. They have in common that a comparison is made between transitions in which the previous task is repeated and transitions that involve a change toward another task. In general, a performance switch cost is observed such that switching to a new task results in a slower and more error-prone execution of the task. The present article reviews the theoretical explanations of the switch cost and the findings collected in support of those explanations. Resolution and protection from interference by previous events explain part of the switching cost, but processes related to task setting and task preparation also play a prominent role, as testified by faster execution and lower switch costs when the preparation time is longer. The authors discuss the evidence in favor of each of these sets of accounts and raise a number of questions that situate task switching in a broader context of cognitive control processes. The role of several aspects of the task set, including task variations, task-set overlap, and task-set structure, is addressed, as is the role of knowledge about probability of task changes and about the structure of task sequences.
任务转换范式正被越来越多地用作研究认知控制和任务协调的工具。已经开发出了不同的程序变体。它们的共同点是，在比较重复上一个任务的转换和涉及转向另一个任务的转换时，会观察到性能切换成本，即切换到新任务会导致任务执行速度更慢且更容易出错。本文回顾了对切换成本的理论解释以及支持这些解释的发现。由先前事件引起的分辨率和干扰保护解释了部分切换成本，但与任务设置和任务准备相关的过程也起着重要作用，当准备时间更长时，这表现为执行速度更快和切换成本更低。作者讨论了支持这些解释的证据，并提出了一些问题，这些问题将任务转换置于认知控制过程的更广泛背景中。任务集的几个方面的作用，包括任务变化、任务集重叠和任务集结构，以及关于任务变化概率和任务序列结构的知识的作用，都得到了探讨。
