Preparing auditory task switching in a task with overlapping and non-overlapping response sets

We used a variant of cued auditory task switching to investigate task preparation and its relation to response-set overlap. Previous studies found increased interference with overlapping response sets across tasks relative to non-overlapping motor response sets. In the present experiments, participants classified either pitch or loudness of a simple tone as low or high, hence, both tasks were constructed around common underlying integrated semantic categories ranging from low to high. Manual responses overlapped in both category and modality for both tasks in Experiment 1A, whereas each task was related to a specific response category and response modality (manual vs. vocal) in Experiment 1B. Focusing on the manual responses in both experiments, the data showed that non-overlapping response sets (Experiment 1B) resulted in a decreased congruency effect, suggesting reduced response-based crosstalk and thus better task shielding, but at the same time switch costs were increased, suggesting less efficient switching between task sets. Moreover, varying preparation time (cue-stimulus interval, CSI) showed that long CSI led to better performance overall. Our results thus suggest that when non-overlapping response sets share common semantic categories across tasks, there is no general benefit over overlapping response sets.