Schuch Stefanie, Koch Iring
Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2010 Nov;135(3):302-9. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.07.016. Epub 2010 Aug 16.
Previous research into the mechanisms of task switching has shown that repeating the same response in a different task context is associated with costs. To investigate whether such response-repetition costs occur even when the first of the two responses is not overtly executed, we used a variant of the change-signal paradigm. Subjects responded to a first stimulus by pressing a left or right response key. In half of the trials, a second stimulus occurred after a variable, adaptively adjusted delay, indicating to abandon the first response, and only respond to the second stimulus using another set of left and right response keys. In Experiment 1, different tasks had to be performed with the first and second stimulus (task-switch condition); in Experiment 2, the same task had to be performed with both stimuli (task-repetition condition). Response-repetition costs were obtained in Experiment 1, and response-repetition benefits in Experiment 2. Importantly, these costs and benefits were obtained even when the first of the two responses had not been overtly executed. The data support the idea that interference of task-specific response codes occurs at the level of abstract response codes. Interference of such response codes occurs even when the responses are not overtly executed.
先前对任务切换机制的研究表明，在不同任务情境中重复相同反应会带来成本。为了探究即使在两个反应中的第一个没有明显执行时，是否也会出现这种反应重复成本，我们采用了变化信号范式的一种变体。受试者通过按下左或右反应键对第一个刺激做出反应。在一半的试验中，经过可变的、自适应调整的延迟后出现第二个刺激，指示放弃第一个反应，仅使用另一组左、右反应键对第二个刺激做出反应。在实验1中，对第一个和第二个刺激必须执行不同的任务（任务切换条件）；在实验2中，对两个刺激都必须执行相同的任务（任务重复条件）。在实验1中获得了反应重复成本，在实验2中获得了反应重复收益。重要的是，即使两个反应中的第一个没有明显执行，也能获得这些成本和收益。数据支持这样一种观点，即特定任务反应代码的干扰发生在抽象反应代码层面。即使反应没有明显执行，这种反应代码的干扰也会发生。
