Response Selection Can Feed Back on Task Selection Through Episodic Retrieval

Goal-directed behaviour is thought to subsume integration, or binding, of perceptual and action features. In task-switching settings, this entails forming a task–response binding in each trial that can then be retrieved in the following trial. Accordingly, repeating the same response in a trial supposedly retrieves the previously relevant task (the N−1 task). In task switches, the retrieved task mismatches with the current task, which causes costs for response repetitions in task-switch trials (RR costs). In the present study (two re-analyses of published data: N = 255, N = 39, and two new experiments: Ns = 96 each), we tested such a binding and retrieval account of the RR costs by isolating specific task confusion errors, namely the erroneous re-application of the N−1 task. Coupled with the use of Multinomial Processing Tree (MPT) models, we could test the prediction, unique to the binding account of RR costs, that selecting a repeating response triggers retrieval of the N−1 task. Coherent with this prediction, the MPT model results showed a larger probability of selecting the N−1 task when the response should be repeated compared to switched. These results challenge strict feedforward processing flowing from task selection to response selection. In fact, selecting a repeating response may divert task selection from the N task towards the N−1 task, via retrieval of the bound N−1 task. Taken together, this study provides novel evidence for episodic retrieval in task switching while specifying the interplay of task and response selection. notReviewed other