Voluntary Task Switching: Chasing the Elusive Homunculus.

Abstract

In the voluntary task switching procedure, subjects choose the task to perform on a series of bivalent stimuli, requiring top-down control of task switching. Experiments 1-3 contrasted voluntary task switching and explicit task cuing. Choice behavior showed small, inconsistent effects of external stimulus characteristics, supporting the assumption of top-down control of task choice. Switch costs were smaller when subjects chose to switch tasks than when instructed by an external cue. Experiments 4 -6 separated choice costs from switch costs. These findings support models of task switching that incorporate top-down processes in accounts of switch costs. The degree to which task switching procedures capture top-down versus bottom-up processes may depend on the extent of environmental support provided by the procedure.

Influences of unconscious priming on voluntary actions: Role of the rostral cingulate zone

“…Intuitively one would think that free choices are mostly determined by our own intentions and internal goals. Previous research, however, suggests that free choices may not be as free as they seem to be, and are strongly influenced by cues from the environment or past experiences (Bargh et al, 2001;Arrington & Logan, 2005;Arrington, Weaver & Pauker, 2010;Wenke, Fleming & Haggard, 2010;Orr & Weissman, 2011;Orr, Carp, & Weissman, 2012;Demanet et al, 2013;Orr & Banich, 2014). Wenke and colleagues (2010), for example, found that subliminal primes influence the responses on free choice trials in such a way that people responded significantly more slowly when they chose to act against the prime (in a prime-incompatible way).…”

“…The participant was asked to respond in a balanced and spontaneous way on free choice trials (Arrington & Logan, 2005;Demanet et al, 2013).…”

A chain-retrieval model for voluntary task switching

“…In line with the view of Arrington and Logan (2005), the instantiation of the task-selection mechanism calls upon the availability heuristic. This heuristic was used in studies of independent event selection and entails that the selected tasks are retrieved from long-term memory (cf.…”

“…In a first study, the model is applied to data of 17 participants in voluntary task switching based on the standard procedure (Arrington & Logan, 2004). In a second study, the model is applied to data of 80 participants in a voluntary task switching study based on the double registration procedure (Arrington & Logan, 2005). This second study is also used to test the assumption that the length of the sequences stored in LTM depends on experience over trials, and the simplifying assumption that task selection over an experimental session is quite stable.…”

“…Such goalselection or task-selection processes can be examined with the voluntary task switching (VTS) procedure (Arrington & Logan, 2004. This procedure seems to tap into the same behavioral mechanisms that are studied in the traditional task-switching procedures as testified by the finding that task switch costs are driven by top-down (Arrington & Logan, 2005;Mayr & Bell, 2006) as well as bottom-up factors (Arrington, 2008;Arrington & Rhodes, 2010;Mayr & Bell, 2006;Yeung, 2010).…”