Fintor Edina, Stephan Denise N, Koch Iring
Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2019 Apr;72(4):955-965. doi: 10.1177/1747021818771836. Epub 2018 May 7.
Two experiments examined the influence of preparation on modality compatibility effects in task switching. The term modality compatibility refers to the similarity between the stimulus modality and the modality of response-related sensory consequences. Previous research showed evidence for modality compatibility benefits in task switching when participants switched either between two modality compatible tasks (auditory-vocal and visual-manual) or between two modality incompatible tasks (auditory-manual and visual-vocal). In this study, we investigated the influence of active preparation on modality compatibility effects in task switching. To this end, in Experiment 1, we introduced unimodal modality cues, whereas in Experiment 2, bimodal abstract cues were used. In both experiments, the cue-stimulus interval (CSI) was manipulated while holding the response-stimulus interval (RSI) constant. In both experiments, we found not only decreased switch costs with long CSI but also the elimination of the residual switch costs. More importantly, this preparation effect did not modulate the modality compatibility effect in task switching. To account for this data pattern, we assume that cue-based preparation of switches by modality mappings was highly effective and produced no residual reaction time (RT) costs with long CSI.
两项实验考察了准备状态对任务转换中模态兼容性效应的影响。术语“模态兼容性”指的是刺激模态与反应相关感觉结果的模态之间的相似性。先前的研究表明，当参与者在两个模态兼容的任务（听觉-发声和视觉-手动）之间或两个模态不兼容的任务（听觉-手动和视觉-发声）之间进行转换时，任务转换中存在模态兼容性优势。在本研究中，我们考察了主动准备状态对任务转换中模态兼容性效应的影响。为此，在实验1中，我们引入了单模态模态线索，而在实验2中，使用了双模态抽象线索。在两个实验中，在保持反应-刺激间隔（RSI）恒定的同时，对线索-刺激间隔（CSI）进行了操纵。在两个实验中，我们不仅发现长CSI时转换成本降低，而且消除了残余转换成本。更重要的是，这种准备效应并未调节任务转换中的模态兼容性效应。为了解释这种数据模式，我们假设基于线索的通过模态映射进行的转换准备非常有效，并且长CSI时不会产生残余反应时（RT）成本。
