Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The majority of task-switching research has focused on shifting attention between multiple tasks in the same percep-tual modality (i.e., visual) within a single task domain. However, typical environments are not unisensory, and typical responsedecisions often involve multiple task domains. This study examines multisensory task-switching costs and the interactions ofseveral variables, including perceptual modality of the cue, perceptual modality of the target task, type of task completed (i.e.,spatial or identity decisions), and availability of foreknowledge. The design is marked by no redundant multisensory infor-mation and minimal memory demands. Performance costs varied as a function of whether participants had foreknowledge ofupcoming task and/or modality presentation. Consistent with previous research, the current results also show that performancecosts between tasks were significantly smaller (and essentially, eliminated) when the sensory modality of the task switchedversus when it repeated. However, this result was contingent on manipulations of the experimental design.