The role of inhibition in task switching: a review

Abstract

The concept of inhibition plays a major role in cognitive psychology. In the present article, we review the evidence for the inhibition of task sets. In the first part, we critically discuss empirical findings of task inhibition from studies that applied variants of the task-switching methodology and argue that most of these findings-such as switch cost asymmetries-are ambiguous. In the second part, we focus on n-2 task-repetition costs, which currently constitute the most convincing evidence for inhibition of task sets. n-2 repetition costs refer to the performance impairment in sequences of the ABA type relative to CBA, which can be interpreted in terms of persisting inhibition of previously abandoned tasks. The available evidence suggests that inhibition is primarily triggered by conflict at selection of stimulus attributes and at the response level.