@article{ref1,
title="Distractor-relevance determines whether task-switching enhances or impairs distractor memory",
journal="Journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance",
year="2015",
author="Chiu, Yu-Chin and Egner, Tobias",
volume="42",
number="1",
pages="1-5",
abstract="Richter and Yeung (2012) recently documented a novel task-switching effect, a switch-induced reduction in &quot;memory selectivity,&quot; characterized by relatively enhanced memory for distractor stimuli and impaired memory for target stimuli encountered on switch trials compared with repeat trials. One interpretation of this finding argues that task-switching involves opening a &quot;gate&quot; to working memory, which promotes updating of the task-set, but at the same time allows for increased distraction from task-irrelevant information. However, in that study, the distractor category on a switch trial also represented the task-relevant target category from the previous trial. Thus, distractors were only intermittently task-irrelevant, such that switch-enhanced distractor memory could alternatively be because of remnant attention to the previously relevant stimuli, or &quot;task-set inertia.&quot; Here we adjudicated between the open-gate and the task-set inertia accounts of switch-enhanced distractor memory by assessing incidental memory for distractors that were either intermittently or always task-irrelevant. While we replicated switch-enhanced distractor memory in the intermittently irrelevant distractor condition, this effect was reversed in the always-irrelevant distractor condition. These results speak against the open-gate account, and instead indicate that switch-enhanced distractor memory arises from task-set inertia, and will not be observed for truly task-irrelevant stimuli presented during switching. (PsycINFO Database Record<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0096-1523",
doi="10.1037/xhp0000181",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000181"
}