Individual Differences in Cognitive Strategy During Reactive Task-Set Switching

Researchers who employ traditional laboratory task-set switching paradigms often assume that their participants are using only one strategy to complete switch moves. In the current study, we hypothesized that real world task-set switching behaviors are facilitated by multiple processing strategies, including fast “heuristic” strategies that are employed when switching is routine, and slower “reasoned” strategies that are used less often when heuristic strategies fail. In this study, 151 undergraduate students from George Mason University volunteered to complete the Youmans Cognitive Flexibility Assessment (YCFA), a computer-based, reactive task-set switching paradigm that takes the form of a simple puzzle game. Participants’ reaction time data suggests that they tried to utilize both heuristic and reasoned strategies to make task-set switches, and that they only used reasoned strategies when heuristic strategies failed. The data also revealed that participants quickly abandoned reasoned strategies when heuristic strategies once again become successful. We conclude by providing some guidance for system designers regarding the speed with which humans who are employing reasoned approaches to task-set switching will abandon them once heuristic approaches again become successful, and by discussing the implications of our findings for safe system design.