Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
Psychol Res. 2019 Jul;83(5):1007-1019. doi: 10.1007/s00426-017-0921-3. Epub 2017 Sep 26.
This study investigated effects of manipulating the response-cue interval (RCI) in the extended-runs task-switching procedure. In this procedure, a task cue is presented at the start of a run of trials and then withdrawn, such that the task has to be stored in memory to guide performance until the next task cue is presented. The effects of the RCI manipulation were not as predicted by an existing model of memory processes in task switching (Altmann and Gray, Psychol Rev 115:602-639, 2008), suggesting that either the model is incorrect or the RCI manipulation did not have the intended effect. The manipulation did produce a theoretically meaningful pattern, in the form of a main effect on response time that was not accompanied by a similar effect on the error rate. This pattern, which replicated across two experiments, is interpreted here in terms of a process that monitors for the next task cue, with a longer RCI acting as a stronger signal that a cue is about to appear. The results have implications for the human factors of dynamic task environments in which critical events occur unpredictably.
本研究调查了在扩展运行任务转换程序中操纵反应线索间隔（RCI）的效果。在该程序中，任务线索在一轮试验开始时呈现，然后撤回，使得任务必须存储在记忆中以指导执行，直到呈现下一个任务线索。RCI 操作的效果与任务转换中记忆过程的现有模型（Altmann 和 Gray，Psychol Rev 115：602-639，2008）的预测不一致，这表明该模型要么不正确，要么 RCI 操作没有产生预期的效果。该操作确实产生了一种理论上有意义的模式，表现在反应时间上的主要效应，而错误率没有类似的效应。这种模式在两个实验中得到了复制，根据一种监测下一个任务线索的过程来解释，较长的 RCI 充当了即将出现线索的更强信号。结果对动态任务环境中的人为因素有影响，在这种环境中，关键事件不可预测地发生。
