Examining independently switching components of auditory task sets : towards a general mechanism of multicomponent switching

Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2018; Aachen 1 Online-Ressource (XII, 168 Seiten) : Illustrationen (2018). = Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2018
To deal with the flood of information that we are confronted with in daily life, the cognitive system allows to quickly switch between the processing of different tasks. In the present thesis, I examine complex task switching situations in which different components of the task representation switch independently and randomly between trials. In such paradigms, typically, a robust interaction of the components' switches and repetitions is obtained that indicates their integrated processing. It was the aim of the present thesis to identify the general mechanism underlying the component interactions. I start with a review of findings and theories reported in previous studies, and I identify three different interaction pattern types, which are defined by their interactions’ strengths. In the four studies, which are part of this thesis, the component interaction was examined in setups with auditory stimuli. Namely, an auditory attention component and a judgment component led to a rather weakly pronounced interaction pattern. Additional manipulations showed that this interaction pattern was not modulated by modality-specific processing demands and that it even arose when the attention switches were elicited automatically by exogenous cues. Moreover, the component that was cued in the beginning of the trial seemed to dominate the interaction pattern. When there was sufficient time for cue-based preparation of an attention switch, the interaction pattern became more pronounced. Similarly more pronounced patterns were found with instructed dependencies between the components. They allowed a preparation of a component based on the processing of the other component. Dependencies were especially evident in the interaction of a judgment component and a response component. The latter component interaction has elicited a rather separate line of research in the past years (i.e., studies on response repetition effect). As an explanation for the interaction pattern, inhibition of the just executed response was proposed. Yet, the similarities between the interaction of judgment component and response component, and the interactions of other components rather point towards a general mechanism of integrated component processing. A component interaction seems to be generally elicited to a large part by episodic priming and temporal episodic binding of the components. In component switches, in contrast, active preparation during a sufficiently long interval and facilitated switches due to instructed component dependencies seems to affect performance, too. Altogether, the present thesis points towards a general mechanism of integrated component processing and emphasizes that future research on multicomponent switching and on response repetition effects may benefit from more exchange.
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