Institute of Psychology, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Alexanderstr. 10, 64283, Darmstadt, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Mem Cognit. 2019 Jul;47(5):1044-1061. doi: 10.3758/s13421-019-00911-x.
Task-switching training was shown to improve performance not only for the trained tasks (i.e., reduced performance costs resulting from the task switches), but also for structurally similar (near transfer) or even dissimilar tasks (far transfer). However, it is still unclear whether the improvement is specific to the trained input modality or whether cognitive control occurs at an amodal processing level enabling transfer of set-shifting abilities to different input modalities. In this study, training and transfer was assessed for an auditory task-switching paradigm in which spoken words from different semantic categories were presented dichotically requiring participants to switch between two auditory categorization tasks. Cross-modal transfer of task-switching training was assessed in terms of the performance costs in a visual task-switching situation using tasks that were structurally similar to the trained tasks. The 4-day training significantly reduced the costs resulting from mixing the two auditory tasks, as compared to both an active (auditory single-task training) and a passive control group (no training). More importantly, the auditory task-switching training was also found to reduce the mixing costs for untrained visual tasks, indicating cross-modal transfer. This finding suggests that the improvement resulting from task-switching training is not specific to the trained stimulus modality, but it seems to be driven by a cognitive control mechanism operating at an amodal processing level. The training did not reveal any far-transfer effects to working memory, inhibition, or fluid intelligence, suggesting that the modality-independent enhancement of set-shifting does not generalize to other cognitive control functions.
任务转换训练不仅可以提高训练任务的表现（即减少任务转换导致的表现成本），还可以提高结构相似（近迁移）甚至不相似任务（远迁移）的表现。然而，目前尚不清楚这种提高是否特定于训练的输入模态，或者认知控制是否发生在一个无模态处理水平上，从而使转移能力能够转移到不同的输入模态。在这项研究中，评估了一种听觉任务转换范式的训练和迁移，其中不同语义类别的口语词以双声道呈现，要求参与者在两个听觉分类任务之间进行转换。使用与训练任务结构相似的任务，评估了视觉任务转换情况下的跨模态任务转换训练的转移效果。与主动（听觉单任务训练）和被动控制组（无训练）相比，为期 4 天的训练显著降低了混合两种听觉任务的成本。更重要的是，听觉任务转换训练也降低了未训练的视觉任务的混合成本，表明存在跨模态转移。这一发现表明，任务转换训练的提高不是特定于训练的刺激模态，而是似乎由一个在无模态处理水平上运作的认知控制机制驱动的。该训练没有显示出对工作记忆、抑制或流体智力的任何远迁移效应，表明转移能力的模态独立性增强不会推广到其他认知控制功能。
