Action control: Intentional and stimulus driven processes

Andrea Kiesel, Roland Pfister

Human behavior is highly adaptive and flexible in response to changing environmental demands. This flexibility requires complex control processes, which allow humans to not only respond reactively but also to behave in a more proactive way to achieve goals and to perform tasks. The task-switching paradigm offers enormous possibilities to study action control in complex, yet experimentally well-controlled settings. In this project, we investigated the impact of intentional and stimulus driven processes when switching between tasks. Hitherto, our results demonstrate that both intentional-based and stimulus-based processes play a role in task switching. Currently, we investigate the impact of biological markers, like sleep curtailment or stress on action control processes.

Wendt, M.*, Kiesel, A.*, Geringswald, F., Purmann, S., & Fischer, R. (2014). Attentional adjustment to conflict strength: Evidence from the effects of manipulating flanker-target SOA on response times and prestimulus pupil size. Experimental Psychology, 61, 55-67. pdf.

Waszak. F., Pfister, R., & Kiesel, A. (2013). Top-down v. bottom-up: When instructions overcome automatic retrieval. Psychological Research, 77, 611-617.

Fischer, R., Plessow, F., & Kiesel, A., (2013). The effects of alerting signals in masked priming. Frontiers in Cognition. 4:448. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00448

Wendt, M., Luna-Rodriguez, A., Kiesel, A., & Jacobsen, T. (2013). Conflict adjustment devoid of perceptual selection. Acta Psychologica, 144, 31-39.

Wendt, M.*, Kiesel, A.*, Mathew, H., Luna-Rodriguez, A., & Jacobsen, T. (2013). Irrelevant stimulus processing when switching between tasks. Journal of Psychology/Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 41-50. (*shared first authership)

Plessow, F., Kiesel, A., & Kirschbaum, C. (2012). The Stressed Prefrontal Cortex and Goal-Directed Behaviour: Acute Psychosocial Stress Impairs the Flexible Implementation of Task Goals. Experimental Brain Research, 216, 397-408.

Plessow, F., Kiesel, A., Petzold A., & Kirschbaum, C. (2011). Chronic Sleep Curtailment Impairs the Flexible Implementation of Task Goals in New Parents. Journal of Sleep Research, 20, 279-287.

Strobach, T., Liepelt, R., Schubert, T., & Kiesel, A. (2012).  Task switching: Effects of practice on switch and mising costs. Psychological Research, 76, 74-83.

Kiesel, A., Steinhauser, M., Wendt, M., Falkenstein, M., Jost, K., Phillip, A., & Koch, I. (2010). Control and interference in task switching - A review. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 849-874.

Wendt, M., & Kiesel, A. (2008). The impact of stimulus-specific practice and task instructions on response congruency effects between tasks. Psychological Research, 72, 425-432.

Kiesel, A., Wendt, M., & Peters, A. (2007). Task Switching: On the origins of response congruency effects. Psychological Research, 71, 117-125.