How task representations guide attention: further evidence for the shielding function of task sets.

Full Abstract

To pursue goal directed behavior, the cognitive system must be shielded against interference from irrelevant information. Aside from the online adjustment of cognitive control widely discussed in the literature, an additional mechanism of preventive goal shielding is suggested that circumvents irrelevant information from being processed in the first place. Participants had to react to 8 different words depicting clothing items that were presented in front of line drawings that could be either semantically related (clothes) or unrelated (animals with spatial orientation) to the target words. Participants either learned the stimulus-response (S-R) mappings by heart or used 1 task set (TS). In the S-R group, semantically related and unrelated distractors interfered with performance, whereas in the TS group, only semantically related distractors interfered, and unrelated distractors had no effect. It follows that task representations based on a general TS help to focus attention on relevant information, thereby preventing the processing of irrelevant information. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved

Author information

Author/s: Dreisbach, Gesine (G); Haider, Hilde (H);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany. gesine.dreisbach(-atsign-)uni-bielefeld.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Mar; vol 35 (issue 2) : pp 477-86

Dates: Created 2009/03/10; Completed 2009/05/11;

PMID: 19271860, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 5/11/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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