In this project we investigated how human behavior is controlled by internal goals and intentions in interaction and competition with stimulus triggered processes. As experimental method mainly the paradigm of task-set shifting was applied, i.e. the participants had to shift between different mental tasks across trials. Compared to a constant task, task shifting produces costs with respect to response times and errors. Usually, it is assumed that the shift costs are due to preparatory processes which reconfigure the mental system for the respective task. However, even when participants have plenty of time for task preparation, some residual shift costs remain. What are the sources of these residual shift or mixing costs? This is one of the questions we were investigating.
The project (HU 432/8, 2002-2007) was part of the Priority Programm Executive Functions (SPP 1107) , funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG).
Maier, M., Steinhauser, M., & Hübner, R. (2008). Is the ERN amplitude related to error detectability? Evidence from effects of different error types. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 2263–2273. <pdf>
Steinhauser, M., & Hübner, R. (2008). How task errors affect subsequent behavior: Evidence from distributional analyses of task-shifting effects. Memory & Cognition, 36, 979-990. <pdf>
Steinhauser, M. Maier, M. & Hübner, R. (2008). Modeling behavioral measures of error detection in choice tasks: Response monitoring versus conflict monitoring. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 158-176. <pdf>
Steinhauser, M. Maier, M. & Hübner, R. (2007). Cognitive Control under Stress: How stress affects strategies of task-set configuration. Psychological Science, 18, 540-545. <pdf>
Steinhauser, M., & Hübner, R. (2007). Automatic activation of task-relevant representations in task-shifting. Memory & Cognition, 35, 138-155. <pdf>
Steinhauser, M., & Hübner, R. (2005). Mixing costs in task-shifting reflect sequential processing stages in a multicomponent task. Memory & Cognition, 33, 1484-1494. <pdf>