Duthoo Wout, De Baene Wouter, Wühr Peter, Notebaert Wim
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University Ghent, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2012 Aug 8;3:282. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00282. eCollection 2012.
In this paper, we aimed to investigate the role of self-generated predictions in the flexible control of behavior. Therefore, we ran a task switching experiment in which participants were asked to try to predict the upcoming task in three conditions varying in switch rate (30, 50, and 70%). Irrespective of their predictions, the color of the target indicated which task participants had to perform. In line with previous studies (Mayr, 2006; Monsell and Mizon, 2006), the switch cost was attenuated as the switch rate increased. Importantly, a clear task repetition bias was found in all conditions, yet the task repetition prediction rate dropped from 78 over 66 to 49% with increasing switch probability in the three conditions. Irrespective of condition, the switch cost was strongly reduced in expectation of a task alternation compared to the cost of an unexpected task alternation following repetition predictions. Hence, our data suggest that the reduction in the switch cost with increasing switch probability is caused by a diminished expectancy for the task to repeat. Taken together, this paper highlights the importance of predictions in the flexible control of behavior, and suggests a crucial role for task repetition expectancy in the context-sensitive adjusting of task switching performance.
在本文中，我们旨在研究自我生成的预测在行为的灵活控制中的作用。因此，我们进行了一项任务切换实验，要求参与者在三种切换率（30%、50%和70%）不同的条件下尝试预测即将到来的任务。无论他们的预测如何，目标的颜色表明参与者必须执行哪个任务。与先前的研究一致（迈尔，2006年；蒙塞尔和米宗，2006年），随着切换率的增加，切换成本会降低。重要的是，在所有条件下都发现了明显的任务重复偏差，但在这三种条件下，随着切换概率的增加，任务重复预测率从78%降至66%，再降至49%。无论条件如何，与重复预测后意外任务切换的成本相比，预期任务交替时的切换成本会大幅降低。因此，我们的数据表明，随着切换概率的增加，切换成本的降低是由于对任务重复的预期降低所致。综上所述，本文强调了预测在行为灵活控制中的重要性，并表明任务重复预期在任务切换性能的上下文敏感调整中起着关键作用。
