Publications by category
Books
Monsell S, Driver J (eds)(2000). Control of cognitive processes: Attention and Performance XVIII. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
Journal articles
Monsell S, Lavric A, Strivens A, Paul E (In Press). Can we prepare to attend to. one of two simultaneous voices?.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and PerformanceAbstract:
Can we prepare to attend to. one of two simultaneous voices?
We can selectively attend to one of two simultaneous voices sharing a source location. Can we endogenously select the voice before speech is heard? Participants heard two digit names, spoken simultaneously by a male and a female voice, following a visual cue indicating which voice’s digit to classify as odd or even. There was a substantial cost in RT and errors when the target voice switched from one trial to the next. In Experiment 1, with a highly familiar pair of voices, the switch cost reduced by nearly half as the cue-stimulus interval increased from 50 to 800 ms, indicating (contrary to previous reports) effective endogenous preparation for a change of voice. No further reduction in switch cost occurred with a longer preparation interval — this “residual” switch cost may be attributable to attentional “inertia”. In Experiment 2, with previously unfamiliar voices, the pattern of switch costs was very similar, though repeated attention to the same target voice over a run of trials improved performance more. Delaying the onset of one voice by 366 ms improved performance but the pattern of preparatory tuning effects was similar. Thus endogenous preparation for a voice is possible; but it is limited in efficacy, as for some other attentional domains.
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Elchlepp H, Best M, Lavric A, Monsell S (In Press). Shifting attention between visual dimensions as a source of the task switch cost.
Psychological Science Full text.
Lavric A, Clapp A, East A, Elchlepp H, Monsell S (2018). Is preparing for a language switch like preparing for a task switch? (Article).
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition Full text.
McLaren IPL, McAndrew A, Angerer K, McLaren R, Forrest C, Bowditch W, Monsell S, Verbruggen F (2018). Mackintosh lecture—: Association and cognition: Two processes, one system.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Full text.
Longman CS, Lavric A, Monsell S (2017). Self-paced preparation for a task switch eliminates attentional inertia but not the performance switch cost.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
43(6), 862-873.
Abstract:
Self-paced preparation for a task switch eliminates attentional inertia but not the performance switch cost.
The performance overhead associated with changing tasks (the "switch cost") usually diminishes when the task is specified in advance but is rarely eliminated by preparation. A popular account of the "residual" (asymptotic) switch cost is that it reflects "task-set inertia": carry-over of task-set parameters from the preceding trial(s). New evidence for a component of "task-set inertia" comes from eye-tracking, where the location associated with the previously (but no longer) relevant task is fixated preferentially over other irrelevant locations, even when preparation intervals are generous. Might such limits in overcoming task-set inertia in general, and "attentional inertia" in particular, result from suboptimal scheduling of preparation when the time available is outside one's control? in the present study, the stimulus comprised 3 digits located at the points of an invisible triangle, preceded by a central verbal cue specifying which of 3 classification tasks to perform, each consistently applied to just 1 digit location. The digits were presented only when fixation moved away from the cue, thus giving the participant control over preparation time. In contrast to our previous research with experimenter-determined preparation intervals, we found no sign of attentional inertia for the long preparation intervals. Self-paced preparation reduced but did not eliminate the performance switch cost-leaving a clear residual component in both reaction time and error rates. That the scheduling of preparation accounts for some, but not all, components of the residual switch cost, challenges existing accounts of the switch cost, even those which distinguish between preparatory and poststimulus reconfiguration processes. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Longman CS, Lavric A, Monsell S (2016). The coupling between spatial attention and other components of task-set: a task switching investigation.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental PsychologyAbstract:
The coupling between spatial attention and other components of task-set: a task switching investigation.
Is spatial attention reconfigured independently of, or in tandem with, other task-set components when the task changes? We tracked the eyes of participants cued to perform one of three digit-classification tasks, each consistently associated with a distinct location. Previously we observed, on task switch trials, a substantial delay in orientation to the task-relevant location and tendency to fixate the location of the previously relevant task – “attentional inertia”. In the present experiments the cues specified (and instructions emphasised) the relevant location rather than the current task. In Experiment 1, with explicit spatial cues (arrows or spatial adverbs), the previously documented attentional handicaps all but disappeared, whilst the performance “switch cost” increased. Hence, attention can become decoupled from other aspects of task-set, but at a cost to the efficacy of task-set preparation. Experiment 2 used arbitrary single-letter cues with instructions and a training regime that encouraged participants to interpret the cue as indicating the relevant location rather than task. As in our previous experiments, and unlike in Experiment 1, we now observed clear switch-induced attentional delay and inertia, suggesting that the natural tendency is for spatial attention and task-set to be coupled and that only quasi-exogenous location cues decouple their reconfiguration.
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Elchlepp H, Lavric A, Monsell S (2015). A change of task prolongs early processes: evidence from ERPs in lexical tasks.
J Exp Psychol Gen,
144(2), 299-325.
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A change of task prolongs early processes: evidence from ERPs in lexical tasks.
Switching tasks costs time. Allowing time to prepare reduces the cost, but usually leaves an irreducible "residual cost." Most accounts of this residual cost locate it within the response-selection stage of processing. To determine which processing stage is affected, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) as participants performed a reading task or a perceptual judgment task, and examined the effect of a task switch on early markers of lexical processing. A task cue preceding a string of blue and red letters instructed the participant either to read the letter string (for a semantic classification in Experiment 1, and a lexical decision in Experiment 2) or to judge the symmetry of its color pattern. In Experiment 1, having to switch to the reading task delayed the evolution of the effect of word frequency on the reading task ERP by a substantial fraction of the effect on reaction time (RT). In Experiment 2, a task switch delayed the onset of the effect of lexical status on the ERP by about the same extent that it prolonged the RT. These effects indicate an early locus of (most of) the residual switch cost: We propose that this reflects a form of task-related attentional inertia. Other findings have implications for the automaticity of lexical access: Effects of frequency, lexicality, and orthographic familiarity on ERPs in the symmetry task indicated involuntary, but attenuated, orthographic and lexical processing even when attention was focused on a nonlexical property.
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van 't Wout F, Lavric A, Monsell S (2015). Is it harder to switch among a larger set of tasks?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
41(2), 363-376.
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Is it harder to switch among a larger set of tasks?
When stimuli afford multiple tasks, switching among them involves promoting one of several task-sets in play into a most-active state. This process, often conceptualized as retrieving task parameters and stimulus-response (S-R) rules into procedural working memory, is a likely source of the reaction time (RT) cost of a task-switch, especially when no time is available for task preparation before the stimulus. We report 2 task-cuing experiments that asked whether the time consumed by task-set retrieval increases with the number of task-sets in play, while unconfounding the number of tasks with their frequency and recency of use. Participants were required to switch among 3 or 5 orthogonal classifications of perceptual attributes of an object (Experiment 1) or of phonological/semantic attributes of a word (Experiment 2), with a 100 or 1,300 ms cue-stimulus interval. For 2 tasks for which recency and frequency were matched in the 3- and 5-task conditions, there was no effect of number of tasks on the switch cost. For the other tasks, there was a greater switch cost in the 5-task condition with little time for preparation, attributable to effects of frequency/recency. Thus, retrieval time for active task-sets is not influenced by the number of alternatives per se (unlike several other kinds of memory retrieval) but is influenced by recency or frequency of use.
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Longman CS, Lavric A, Munteanu C, Monsell S (2014). Attentional inertia and delayed orienting of spatial attention in task-switching.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform,
40(4), 1580-1602.
Abstract:
Attentional inertia and delayed orienting of spatial attention in task-switching.
Among the potential, but neglected, sources of task-switch costs is the need to reallocate attention to different attributes or objects. Even theorists who recognize the importance of attentional resetting in task-switching sometimes think it too efficient to result in significant behavioral costs. We examined the dynamics of spatial attention in a task-cuing paradigm using eye-tracking. Digits appeared simultaneously at 3 locations. A cue preceded this display by a variable interval, instructing the performance of 1 of 3 classification tasks (odd-even, low-high, inner-outer) each consistently associated with a location, so that task preparation could be tracked via fixation of the task-relevant location. Task-switching led to a delay in selecting the relevant location and a tendency to misallocate attention; the previously relevant location attracted attention much more than the other irrelevant location on switch trials, indicating "inertia" in attentional parameters rather than mere distractibility. These effects predicted reaction time switch costs within and over participants. The switch-induced delay was not confined to trials with slow/late orienting, but characteristic of most switch trials. The attentional pull of the previously relevant location was substantially reduced, but not eliminated, by extending the preparation interval to more than 1 sec, suggesting that attentional inertia contributes to the "residual" switch cost. A control condition, using identical displays but only 1 task, showed that these effects could not be attributed to the (small and transient) delays or inertia observed when the required orientation changed between trials in the absence of a task change.
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Forrest CLD, Monsell S, McLaren IPL (2014). Is performance in task-cuing experiments mediated by task set selection or associative compound retrieval?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
40(4), 1002-1024.
Abstract:
Is performance in task-cuing experiments mediated by task set selection or associative compound retrieval?
Task-cuing experiments are usually intended to explore control of task set. But when small stimulus sets are used, they plausibly afford learning of the response associated with a combination of cue and stimulus, without reference to tasks. In 3 experiments we presented the typical trials of a task-cuing experiment: a cue (colored shape) followed, after a short or long interval, by a digit to which 1 of 2 responses was required. In a tasks condition, participants were (as usual) directed to interpret the cue as an instruction to perform either an odd/even or a high/low classification task. In a cue + stimulus → response (CSR) condition, to induce learning of mappings between cue-stimulus compound and response, participants were, in Experiment 1, given standard task instructions and additionally encouraged to learn the CSR mappings; in Experiment 2, informed of all the CSR mappings and asked to learn them, without standard task instructions; in Experiment 3, required to learn the mappings by trial and error. The effects of a task switch, response congruence, preparation, and transfer to a new set of stimuli differed substantially between the conditions in ways indicative of classification according to task rules in the tasks condition, and retrieval of responses specific to stimulus-cue combinations in the CSR conditions. Qualitative features of the latter could be captured by an associative learning network. Hence associatively based compound retrieval can serve as the basis for performance with a small stimulus set. But when organization by tasks is apparent, control via task set selection is the natural and efficient strategy.
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van 't Wout F, Lavric A, Monsell S (2013). Are stimulus-response rules represented phonologically for task-set preparation and maintenance?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
39(5), 1538-1551.
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Are stimulus-response rules represented phonologically for task-set preparation and maintenance?
Accounts of task-set control generally assume that the current task's stimulus-response (S-R) rules must be elevated to a privileged state of activation. How are they represented in this state? in 3 task-cuing experiments, we tested the hypothesis that phonological working memory is used to represent S-R rules for task-set control by getting participants to switch between 2 sets of arbitrary S-R rules and manipulating the articulatory duration (Experiment 1) or phonological similarity (Experiments 2 and 3) of the names of the stimulus terms. The task cue specified which of 2 objects (Experiment 1) or consonants (Experiment 2) in a display to identify with a key press. In Experiment 3, participants switched between identifying an object/consonant and its color/visual texture. After practice, neither the duration nor the similarity of the stimulus terms had detectable effects on overall performance, task-switch cost, or its reduction with preparation. Only in the initial single-task training blocks was phonological similarity a significant handicap. Hence, beyond a very transient role, there is no evidence that (declarative) phonological working memory makes a functional contribution to representing S-R rules for task-set control, arguably because once learned, they are represented in nonlinguistic procedural working memory.
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Longman C, Lavric A, Monsell S (2013). More attention to attention? an eye-tracking investigation of selection of perceptual attributes during a task switch.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
39(4), 1142-1151.
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Monsell S, Filmer HL (2013). TMS to V1 spares discrimination of emotive relative to neutral body postures. Neuropsychologia, 51(13), 2485-2491.
Elchlepp H, Lavric A, Mizon G, Monsell S (2012). A brain-potential study of preparation for and execution of a task-switch with stimuli that afford only the relevant task.
Human Brain Mapping,
33, 1137-1154.
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A brain-potential study of preparation for and execution of a task-switch with stimuli that afford only the relevant task.
Behavioural and neurophysiological studies of task-switching have tended to employ ‘bivalent’ stimuli (which afford responses in two tasks). Using brain potential recordings, we investigated task-switching with ‘univalent’ stimuli affording responses in only one of the tasks, and compared the outcomes to those recently obtained with bivalent stimuli (Lavric et al. [2008]: Eur J
Neurosci 1-14), in order to examine two phenomena. First, when only univalent stimuli are presented, the processing of task cues becomes optional. Our results showed that in these circumstances linguistic (but not pictorial) cues were still effective in eliciting at least some degree of preparation for a taskswitch, as evidenced by the reduction in the error cost of switching at the longer preparation interval
and by a posterior switch-induced ERP positivity at about 450–800 ms in the cue-stimulus interval.
Second, single affordance stimuli not only reduced behavioural switch costs relative to bivalent stimuli; they also produced a smaller post-stimulus switch-induced negativity, consistent with the latter being a marker of conflict between task-sets. However, using stimuli not associated with responses in the
alternative task did not completely eliminate the negativity. We speculate that the residue reflects other sources of conflict: attention to the irrelevant perceptual dimension and/or persistence of task goals.
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Monsell S (2012). The chronometrics of task-set control. Measuring the Mind Speed, control, and age, 9780198566427
Lavric A, Mizon, G.A. Monsell, S. (2008). Neurophysiological signature of effective anticipatory task-set control: a task-switching investigation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 1016-1029.
Monsell S, Mizon GA (2006). Can the task-cueing paradigm measure an endogenous task-set reconfiguration process?. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance, 32(3), 493-516.
Tree JJ, Hirsh KW, Monsell S (2005). Inhibitory semantic priming: Does syntactic class play a role in determining competitor status?.
Journal of Neurolinguistics,
18(6), 443-460.
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Inhibitory semantic priming: Does syntactic class play a role in determining competitor status?
Most current models of lexical or 'lemma' selection propose the parallel activation of a set of possible candidates where candidates compete to meet a 'best match' criterion. One method for testing the competitive activation hypothesis is to manipulate the recency with which a likely competitor word has been produced by priming it. Under certain assumptions one would predict that the point at which a target reaches criterion will be delayed if a competitor has been given such a head start. Implicit in the idea of competition among lemmas is the idea that the activation cohort is limited to items that share both semantic and syntactic features with the target item, as lemmas are argued to specify semantic and syntactic features of lexical items. We set out to explore the importance of syntactic class in determining the composition of the competitor cohort by comparing priming effects for semantically related items that either shared syntactic class - a noun priming a noun - or were from different syntactic classes - a verb priming a noun. We show that the competitor effect is a general one not limited to items drawn from the same syntactic class: giving either a related noun or a related verb a head start increases the time taken to produce the name of a pictured object. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Aron A, Monsell S, Sahakain B, Robbins TW (2004). A componential analysis of task-set switching deficits associated with lesions of left and right frontal cortex. Brain, 127(7), 1561-1573.
Monsell S, Yeung N (2003). Switching between tasks of unequal familiarity: the role of stimulus-attribute and response-set selection. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance, 29(2), 455-469.
Monsell S (2003). Task switching.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES,
7(3), 134-140.
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Monsell S (2003). Task-set reconfiguration processes do not imply a control homunuculus: Reply to Altmann.
Trends Cogn Sci,
7(8), 341-342.
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Monsell S, Sumner P, Waters H (2003). Task-set reconfiguration with predictable and unpredictable task switches.
Mem Cognit,
31(3), 327-342.
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Task-set reconfiguration with predictable and unpredictable task switches.
Participants switched frequently between high/low and odd/even classification of a digit. The interval between a task cue and the next digit varied between blocks. In Experiment 1, the task switched predictably every two, four, or eight trials. In Experiment 2, switching predictably every four trials was compared with random switching. With predictable switching, the cost was limited to the first trial of a run. Random switching produced a more gradual approach to asymptotic performance. After one performance, control processes attenuate the resulting change in task-set bias if a further switch is likely, but this strategic modulation is soon overwhelmed by task-set priming through further performances. Preparation reduced switch costs but not interference from the irrelevant attribute: Control of interference appears to be reactive, not proactive. Switch costs did not increase with run length, suggesting that retrieval of the task set last associated with the stimulus did not contribute to switch costs.
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Aron AR, Watkins, L. Sahakian, B.J. Monsell, S. Barker BA, Robbins TW (2003). Task-set switching deficits in early-stage Huntington's disease: Implications for basal ganglia function. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 629-642.
Yeung N, Monsell S (2003). The effects of recent practice on task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 919-936.
Nieuwenhuis S, Monsell, S. (2002). Residual costs in task switching: Testing the "failure to engage" hypothesis. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 86-92.
Monsell S, Taylor, T.J. Murphy, K. (2001). Naming the color of a word: is it responses or task-sets that compete?. Memory and Cognition, 29, 137-151.
Monsell S, Driver J (2000). Banishing the control homunculus.
Attention and Performance,
18, 1-32.
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Banishing the control homunculus
We define the problem addressed at the eighteenth Attention and Performance symposium as that of explaining how voluntary control is exerted over the organization and activation of cognitive processes in accordance with current goals, without appealing to an all-powerful but ill-defined " executive" or controlling "homunculus." We provide background to the issues and approaches represented in the seven parts of the volume and review each chapter, mentioning also some other contributions made at the symposium. We identify themes and controversies that recur through the volume: the multiplicity of control functions that must be invoked to explain performance even of simple tasks, the limits of endogenous control in interaction with exogenous influences and habits, the emergence of control through top-down "sculpting" of reflexive procedures, the debate between structural and strategic accounts of capacity limits, the roles of inhibition and working memory, the fertile interactions between functional and neural levels of analysis. We identify important control issues omitted from the symposium. We argue that progress is at last being made in banishing - or fractionating - the control homunculus.
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Monsell S, Yeung, N. Azuma, R. (2000). Reconfiguration of task-set: is it easier to switch to the weaker task?. Psychological Research, 63, 250-264.
Shafiullah, M. & Monsell, S. (1999). The cost of switching between Kanji and Kana while reading Japanese. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14, 567-607.
Monsell, S. & Hirsh, K. W. (1998). Competitor priming in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1495-1520.
Jones-Chesters MH, Monsell S, Cooper PJ (1998). The disorder-salient stroop effect as a measure of psychopathology in eating disorders.
Int J Eat Disord,
24(1), 65-82.
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The disorder-salient stroop effect as a measure of psychopathology in eating disorders.
OBJECTIVES: the aim was to assess, using sophisticated experimental methods, the amount of interference on a Stroop task in patients with eating disorders, under conditions of blocked and mixed stimulus presentation. METHODS: Patients with eating disorders and non-patients named the color in which a word was displayed. Words came from an experimental category (food/eating, weight/shape, "emotion," or affectively neutral word) or from a matched set of unrelated control words. Color-naming latencies were compared in a blocked condition, with words from just one set in each block, and in a mixed condition, with a mixture of word types in each block. RESULTS: in the mixed condition, patients took longer to color-name food/eating and weight/shape words than control words. With blocked presentation this effect was magnified; and patients with bulimia nervosa also showed increased naming-latency for "emotion" words. Non-patients showed neither effect and no group showed interference for the affectively neutral category. Patients' interference effects correlated reliably with self-reported depression and anxiety. DISCUSSION: Sources of interference and methodological and diagnostic implications are discussed.
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Rogers RD, Monsell S (1995). Costs of a Predictable Switch Between Simple Cognitive Tasks.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,
124(2), 207-231.
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Costs of a Predictable Switch Between Simple Cognitive Tasks
In an investigation of task-set reconfiguration, participants switched between 2 tasks on every 2nd trial in 5 experiments and on every 4th trial in a final experiment. The tasks were to classify either the digit member of a pair of characters as even/odd or the letter member as consonant/vowel. As the response-stimulus interval increased up to 0.6 s, the substantial cost to performance of this predictable task-switch fell: Participants could partially reconfigure in advance of the stimulus. However, even with 1.2 s available for preparation, a large asymptotic reaction time (RT) cost remained, but only on the 1st trial of the new task. This is attributed to a component of reconfiguration triggered exogenously, i. e. only by a task-relevant stimulus. That stimuli evoke associated task-sets also explains why RT and switch costs increased when the stimulus included a character associated with the currently irrelevant task. © 1995 American Psychological Association.
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Hall G, Monsell S (1995). Editorial. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 48(1).
Hall G, Monsell S (1995). Editorial. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 48(1).
Monsell S (1994). Editorial. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology, 47(1), 1-3.
Wheeldon LR, Monsell S (1994). Inhibition of Spoken Word Production by Priming a Semantic Competitor.
Journal of Memory and Language,
33(3), 332-356.
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Inhibition of Spoken Word Production by Priming a Semantic Competitor
In three experiments, naming a pictured object (e.g. shark) was retarded when a competing word (e.g. whale) had been recently elicited by a definition. In Experiment 1, a strong effect was obtained with two trials intervening between prime and probe, but no effect with a lag of several minutes. In Experiment 2, the effect was stronger with two intervening trials than with none. In Experiment 3, in which every picture was also immediately preceded by its category name, this contrast reversed. An increase in the availability of a competing candidate appears to retard word selection during lexicalization-as predicted by certain competitive activation models. This persisting effect is mitigated at zero lag by transient facilitation due to the spread of activation from related concepts. © 1994 Academic Press, Inc.
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Monsell S, Patterson KE, Graham A, Hughes CH, Milroy R (1992). Lexical and Sublexical Translation of Spelling to Sound: Strategic Anticipation of Lexical Status.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
18(3), 452-467.
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Lexical and Sublexical Translation of Spelling to Sound: Strategic Anticipation of Lexical Status
Two experiments on oral reading of single words compared naming performance in pure blocks of nonwords or exception words with performance in blocks of randomly mixed nonwords and exception words. Ss named exception words faster and made fewer regularization errors when they were not also prepared for nonwords. These data suggest Ss inhibit or ignore the computation of assembled phonology when only exception words are expected. Ss named nonwords faster, but no more accurately, when low-frequency exception words were not also anticipated. Thus, Ss' readiness to execute assembled phonology appears to be adjusted in relation to the likely time course of retrieval of learned pronunciations, when the latter must be attended to. This evidence for strategic dissociation between sublexical and lexical translation is discussed in relation to current models.
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Monsell S, Matthews GH, Miller DC (1992). Repetition of lexicalization across languages: a further test of the locus of priming.
Q J Exp Psychol A,
44(4), 763-783.
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Repetition of lexicalization across languages: a further test of the locus of priming.
Wheeldon and Monsell (this issue) found that production of a word in response to a definition had a large and long-lasting facilitatory effect on latency for later production of the same word to name a pictured object, and that this priming effect was not due to repeated production of the phonological word-form per se. This paper reports a further test of the locus of the effect. Welsh-English bilinguals named pictured objects in Welsh. Half the words were primed either by their earlier production in Welsh in response to Welsh definitions or by production of their equivalents in English in response to English definitions. Substantial facilitation resulted from prior production in the same language, none from prior production in the other language--provided that the equivalents differed in phonological form. Given that priming results neither from repeated activation of a meaning when different phonological forms are produced, nor from repetition of the same phonological form in response to different meanings, the priming effect must be localized in the connection between a word's meaning and its phonological form. We also put forward an account of bilingual lexicalization that accommodates this result together with some evidence indicating that production of words in one language is not wholly insulated from the "availability" of words in the other.
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Wheeldon LR, Monsell S (1992). The locus of repetition priming of spoken word production.
Q J Exp Psychol A,
44(4), 723-761.
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The locus of repetition priming of spoken word production.
Naming of a pictured object is substantially facilitated when the name has recently been produced in response to a definition or read aloud. The first experiment shows this to be so when over one hundred trials have intervened, and when the subjects can name the pictures quickly and accurately in the absence of priming. The locus of the effect must be in lexicalization processes subsequent to picture identification and is unlikely to be mediated by recovery of an episodic trace. Two further experiments show that prior production of a homophone of the object's name is not an effective prime, (although slower responses are somewhat facilitated when the homophones are spelled the same). Hence the facilitation observed for repeated production of the same word cannot be associated with the repetition of the phonological form per se. We conclude that the facilitation must be associated with retrieval of the semantic specification or the process of mapping of that specification to its associated phonological representation.
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MONSELL S (1990). FREQUENCY-EFFECTS IN LEXICAL TASKS - REPLY.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL,
119(3), 335-339.
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Monsell S, Doyle MC, Haggard PN (1989). Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: where are they?.
J Exp Psychol Gen,
118(1), 43-71.
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Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: where are they?
Compared the effect of frequency on lexical decision time (LDT) with that on reaction time (RT) in four other tasks, for the same words and subjects. Exp. 1 yielded an effect on semantic categorization RT (person vs. thing) similar in size and form to the effect on LDT. Exp. 2 yielded a substantial effect for syntactic categorization (noun vs. adjective), although weaker than the effect on LDT. In Exp. 3, the effect on naming RT for stress-final disyllabic words was identical to that on LDT, whereas the effect for stress-initial words was weaker. Exp. 4 showed no effect of frequency on delayed naming RT. The data undermine recent arguments for a (mainly) postidentification task-specific locus of frequency effects but are compatible with the older assumption (also characteristic of new PDP learning models) that lexical identification is a major locus of frequency effects (perhaps together with retrieval of meaning or phonology). But effects at that locus may be masked or diluted by other processes.
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STERNBERG S, KNOLL RL, MONSELL S, WRIGHT CE (1988). MOTOR PROGRAMS AND HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE CONTROL OF RAPID SPEECH.
PHONETICA,
45(2-4), 175-197.
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MONSELL S (1987). NONVISUAL ORTHOGRAPHIC PROCESSING AND THE ORTHOGRAPHIC INPUT LEXICON.
ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE(12), 299-323.
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Monsell S (1986). Programming of complex sequences: Evidence from the timing of rapid speech and other productions. Experimental Brain Research, SUPPL. 15, 72-86.
MONSELL S (1984). COMPONENTS OF WORKING MEMORY UNDERLYING VERBAL SKILLS - a DISTRIBUTED CAPACITIES VIEW - a TUTORIAL REVIEW.
ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE,
10, 327-350.
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MONSELL S (1981). REPRESENTATIONS, PROCESSES, MEMORY MECHANISMS - THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF COGNITION.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE,
32(5), 378-390.
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Monsell S (1978). Recency, immediate recognition memory, and reaction time.
Cognitive Psychology,
10(4), 465-501.
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Recency, immediate recognition memory, and reaction time
Four classes of possible mechanisms for short-term item recognition are distinguished: (I) pure list-search, (II) direct-access activation (or trace strength) discrimination, (III) mixtures (of I and II), and (IV) response-association. Manipulations of recency, particularly of negative probe items, provide critical tests between them. Two experiments are reported using Sternberg' s 1966 varied-set reaction time paradigm, coupled with procedures intended to minimize rehearsal and control the recency of probes and memory set items. RT and error rate were greater for negative probe items that had recently been presented than for items less recently presented, and this effect increased with positive set size. In contrast, positive RT was, except for the initial item, a decreasing function of recency (= serial position), and there was no additional effect of set size per se. A brief filled delay between list and probe increased positive RT but not the slope of the set size function. These and other findings appear to reject models of Classes I and IV and, while implying some direct discrimination of an item's recency, require modification of the models of Classes II and III. The implications are discussed with respect to the relation between the two versions of Sternberg's paradigm and also in connection with facilitatory "priming" effects in memory. © 1978.
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Chapters
Monsell S (2017). Task Set Regulation. In (Ed)
The Wiley Handbook of Cognitive Control, Wiley-Blackwell, 29-49.
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Task Set Regulation
Abstract.
Monsell S (2015). Task-Set Control and Task Switching. In Fawcett JM, Risko EF, Kingstone A (Eds.) The Handbook of Attention, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 139-172.
Monsell S. (2004). The chronometrics of task set control. In Duncan, J, Phillips, L & McLeod, P (Eds) Measuring the mind: Speed, control and age. In (Ed) , Oxford University Press.
Monsell S, Driver J (2000). Banishing the control homunculus. In Monsell S, Driver J (Eds.)
Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII, Cambridge MA: M I T PRESS, 3-32.
Abstract:
Banishing the control homunculus
Abstract.
Conferences
Stevens T, Monsell S, Lavric A (2014). THE FUNCTIONAL NEURO-ANATOMY OF TASK-SET SWITCHING AND PREPARATION: AN FMRI META-ANALYSIS.
Author URL.
Forrest CLD, Elchlepp, Monsell, McLaren IPL (2012). Task switching without knowledge of the tasks. Cognitive Science. 1st - 1st Jan 2012.
Full text.
Publications by year
In Press
Monsell S, Lavric A, Strivens A, Paul E (In Press). Can we prepare to attend to. one of two simultaneous voices?.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and PerformanceAbstract:
Can we prepare to attend to. one of two simultaneous voices?
We can selectively attend to one of two simultaneous voices sharing a source location. Can we endogenously select the voice before speech is heard? Participants heard two digit names, spoken simultaneously by a male and a female voice, following a visual cue indicating which voice’s digit to classify as odd or even. There was a substantial cost in RT and errors when the target voice switched from one trial to the next. In Experiment 1, with a highly familiar pair of voices, the switch cost reduced by nearly half as the cue-stimulus interval increased from 50 to 800 ms, indicating (contrary to previous reports) effective endogenous preparation for a change of voice. No further reduction in switch cost occurred with a longer preparation interval — this “residual” switch cost may be attributable to attentional “inertia”. In Experiment 2, with previously unfamiliar voices, the pattern of switch costs was very similar, though repeated attention to the same target voice over a run of trials improved performance more. Delaying the onset of one voice by 366 ms improved performance but the pattern of preparatory tuning effects was similar. Thus endogenous preparation for a voice is possible; but it is limited in efficacy, as for some other attentional domains.
Abstract.
Full text.
Elchlepp H, Best M, Lavric A, Monsell S (In Press). Shifting attention between visual dimensions as a source of the task switch cost.
Psychological Science Full text.
2019
Monsell S, Lavric A, Strivens A, Paul E (2019). Can we prepare to attend to one of two simultaneous voices?.
Full text.
2018
Lavric A, Clapp A, East A, Elchlepp H, Monsell S (2018). Is preparing for a language switch like preparing for a task switch? (Article).
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition Full text.
Lavric A, Clapp A, East A, Elchlepp H, Monsell S (2018). Is preparing for a language switch like preparing for a task switch? (Dataset).
McLaren IPL, McAndrew A, Angerer K, McLaren R, Forrest C, Bowditch W, Monsell S, Verbruggen F (2018). Mackintosh lecture—: Association and cognition: Two processes, one system.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Full text.
2017
Longman CS, Lavric A, Monsell S (2017). Self-paced preparation for a task switch eliminates attentional inertia but not the performance switch cost.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
43(6), 862-873.
Abstract:
Self-paced preparation for a task switch eliminates attentional inertia but not the performance switch cost.
The performance overhead associated with changing tasks (the "switch cost") usually diminishes when the task is specified in advance but is rarely eliminated by preparation. A popular account of the "residual" (asymptotic) switch cost is that it reflects "task-set inertia": carry-over of task-set parameters from the preceding trial(s). New evidence for a component of "task-set inertia" comes from eye-tracking, where the location associated with the previously (but no longer) relevant task is fixated preferentially over other irrelevant locations, even when preparation intervals are generous. Might such limits in overcoming task-set inertia in general, and "attentional inertia" in particular, result from suboptimal scheduling of preparation when the time available is outside one's control? in the present study, the stimulus comprised 3 digits located at the points of an invisible triangle, preceded by a central verbal cue specifying which of 3 classification tasks to perform, each consistently applied to just 1 digit location. The digits were presented only when fixation moved away from the cue, thus giving the participant control over preparation time. In contrast to our previous research with experimenter-determined preparation intervals, we found no sign of attentional inertia for the long preparation intervals. Self-paced preparation reduced but did not eliminate the performance switch cost-leaving a clear residual component in both reaction time and error rates. That the scheduling of preparation accounts for some, but not all, components of the residual switch cost, challenges existing accounts of the switch cost, even those which distinguish between preparatory and poststimulus reconfiguration processes. (PsycINFO Database Record
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Monsell S (2017). Task Set Regulation. In (Ed)
The Wiley Handbook of Cognitive Control, Wiley-Blackwell, 29-49.
Abstract:
Task Set Regulation
Abstract.
2016
Longman CS, Lavric A, Monsell S (2016). The coupling between spatial attention and other components of task-set: a task switching investigation.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental PsychologyAbstract:
The coupling between spatial attention and other components of task-set: a task switching investigation.
Is spatial attention reconfigured independently of, or in tandem with, other task-set components when the task changes? We tracked the eyes of participants cued to perform one of three digit-classification tasks, each consistently associated with a distinct location. Previously we observed, on task switch trials, a substantial delay in orientation to the task-relevant location and tendency to fixate the location of the previously relevant task – “attentional inertia”. In the present experiments the cues specified (and instructions emphasised) the relevant location rather than the current task. In Experiment 1, with explicit spatial cues (arrows or spatial adverbs), the previously documented attentional handicaps all but disappeared, whilst the performance “switch cost” increased. Hence, attention can become decoupled from other aspects of task-set, but at a cost to the efficacy of task-set preparation. Experiment 2 used arbitrary single-letter cues with instructions and a training regime that encouraged participants to interpret the cue as indicating the relevant location rather than task. As in our previous experiments, and unlike in Experiment 1, we now observed clear switch-induced attentional delay and inertia, suggesting that the natural tendency is for spatial attention and task-set to be coupled and that only quasi-exogenous location cues decouple their reconfiguration.
Abstract.
Full text.
2015
Elchlepp H, Lavric A, Monsell S (2015). A change of task prolongs early processes: evidence from ERPs in lexical tasks.
J Exp Psychol Gen,
144(2), 299-325.
Abstract:
A change of task prolongs early processes: evidence from ERPs in lexical tasks.
Switching tasks costs time. Allowing time to prepare reduces the cost, but usually leaves an irreducible "residual cost." Most accounts of this residual cost locate it within the response-selection stage of processing. To determine which processing stage is affected, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) as participants performed a reading task or a perceptual judgment task, and examined the effect of a task switch on early markers of lexical processing. A task cue preceding a string of blue and red letters instructed the participant either to read the letter string (for a semantic classification in Experiment 1, and a lexical decision in Experiment 2) or to judge the symmetry of its color pattern. In Experiment 1, having to switch to the reading task delayed the evolution of the effect of word frequency on the reading task ERP by a substantial fraction of the effect on reaction time (RT). In Experiment 2, a task switch delayed the onset of the effect of lexical status on the ERP by about the same extent that it prolonged the RT. These effects indicate an early locus of (most of) the residual switch cost: We propose that this reflects a form of task-related attentional inertia. Other findings have implications for the automaticity of lexical access: Effects of frequency, lexicality, and orthographic familiarity on ERPs in the symmetry task indicated involuntary, but attenuated, orthographic and lexical processing even when attention was focused on a nonlexical property.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
van 't Wout F, Lavric A, Monsell S (2015). Is it harder to switch among a larger set of tasks?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
41(2), 363-376.
Abstract:
Is it harder to switch among a larger set of tasks?
When stimuli afford multiple tasks, switching among them involves promoting one of several task-sets in play into a most-active state. This process, often conceptualized as retrieving task parameters and stimulus-response (S-R) rules into procedural working memory, is a likely source of the reaction time (RT) cost of a task-switch, especially when no time is available for task preparation before the stimulus. We report 2 task-cuing experiments that asked whether the time consumed by task-set retrieval increases with the number of task-sets in play, while unconfounding the number of tasks with their frequency and recency of use. Participants were required to switch among 3 or 5 orthogonal classifications of perceptual attributes of an object (Experiment 1) or of phonological/semantic attributes of a word (Experiment 2), with a 100 or 1,300 ms cue-stimulus interval. For 2 tasks for which recency and frequency were matched in the 3- and 5-task conditions, there was no effect of number of tasks on the switch cost. For the other tasks, there was a greater switch cost in the 5-task condition with little time for preparation, attributable to effects of frequency/recency. Thus, retrieval time for active task-sets is not influenced by the number of alternatives per se (unlike several other kinds of memory retrieval) but is influenced by recency or frequency of use.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Monsell S (2015). Task-Set Control and Task Switching. In Fawcett JM, Risko EF, Kingstone A (Eds.) The Handbook of Attention, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 139-172.
2014
Longman CS, Lavric A, Munteanu C, Monsell S (2014). Attentional inertia and delayed orienting of spatial attention in task-switching.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform,
40(4), 1580-1602.
Abstract:
Attentional inertia and delayed orienting of spatial attention in task-switching.
Among the potential, but neglected, sources of task-switch costs is the need to reallocate attention to different attributes or objects. Even theorists who recognize the importance of attentional resetting in task-switching sometimes think it too efficient to result in significant behavioral costs. We examined the dynamics of spatial attention in a task-cuing paradigm using eye-tracking. Digits appeared simultaneously at 3 locations. A cue preceded this display by a variable interval, instructing the performance of 1 of 3 classification tasks (odd-even, low-high, inner-outer) each consistently associated with a location, so that task preparation could be tracked via fixation of the task-relevant location. Task-switching led to a delay in selecting the relevant location and a tendency to misallocate attention; the previously relevant location attracted attention much more than the other irrelevant location on switch trials, indicating "inertia" in attentional parameters rather than mere distractibility. These effects predicted reaction time switch costs within and over participants. The switch-induced delay was not confined to trials with slow/late orienting, but characteristic of most switch trials. The attentional pull of the previously relevant location was substantially reduced, but not eliminated, by extending the preparation interval to more than 1 sec, suggesting that attentional inertia contributes to the "residual" switch cost. A control condition, using identical displays but only 1 task, showed that these effects could not be attributed to the (small and transient) delays or inertia observed when the required orientation changed between trials in the absence of a task change.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Forrest CLD, Monsell S, McLaren IPL (2014). Is performance in task-cuing experiments mediated by task set selection or associative compound retrieval?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
40(4), 1002-1024.
Abstract:
Is performance in task-cuing experiments mediated by task set selection or associative compound retrieval?
Task-cuing experiments are usually intended to explore control of task set. But when small stimulus sets are used, they plausibly afford learning of the response associated with a combination of cue and stimulus, without reference to tasks. In 3 experiments we presented the typical trials of a task-cuing experiment: a cue (colored shape) followed, after a short or long interval, by a digit to which 1 of 2 responses was required. In a tasks condition, participants were (as usual) directed to interpret the cue as an instruction to perform either an odd/even or a high/low classification task. In a cue + stimulus → response (CSR) condition, to induce learning of mappings between cue-stimulus compound and response, participants were, in Experiment 1, given standard task instructions and additionally encouraged to learn the CSR mappings; in Experiment 2, informed of all the CSR mappings and asked to learn them, without standard task instructions; in Experiment 3, required to learn the mappings by trial and error. The effects of a task switch, response congruence, preparation, and transfer to a new set of stimuli differed substantially between the conditions in ways indicative of classification according to task rules in the tasks condition, and retrieval of responses specific to stimulus-cue combinations in the CSR conditions. Qualitative features of the latter could be captured by an associative learning network. Hence associatively based compound retrieval can serve as the basis for performance with a small stimulus set. But when organization by tasks is apparent, control via task set selection is the natural and efficient strategy.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Stevens T, Monsell S, Lavric A (2014). THE FUNCTIONAL NEURO-ANATOMY OF TASK-SET SWITCHING AND PREPARATION: AN FMRI META-ANALYSIS.
Author URL.
2013
van 't Wout F, Lavric A, Monsell S (2013). Are stimulus-response rules represented phonologically for task-set preparation and maintenance?.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn,
39(5), 1538-1551.
Abstract:
Are stimulus-response rules represented phonologically for task-set preparation and maintenance?
Accounts of task-set control generally assume that the current task's stimulus-response (S-R) rules must be elevated to a privileged state of activation. How are they represented in this state? in 3 task-cuing experiments, we tested the hypothesis that phonological working memory is used to represent S-R rules for task-set control by getting participants to switch between 2 sets of arbitrary S-R rules and manipulating the articulatory duration (Experiment 1) or phonological similarity (Experiments 2 and 3) of the names of the stimulus terms. The task cue specified which of 2 objects (Experiment 1) or consonants (Experiment 2) in a display to identify with a key press. In Experiment 3, participants switched between identifying an object/consonant and its color/visual texture. After practice, neither the duration nor the similarity of the stimulus terms had detectable effects on overall performance, task-switch cost, or its reduction with preparation. Only in the initial single-task training blocks was phonological similarity a significant handicap. Hence, beyond a very transient role, there is no evidence that (declarative) phonological working memory makes a functional contribution to representing S-R rules for task-set control, arguably because once learned, they are represented in nonlinguistic procedural working memory.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Longman C, Lavric A, Monsell S (2013). More attention to attention? an eye-tracking investigation of selection of perceptual attributes during a task switch.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
39(4), 1142-1151.
Full text.
Monsell S, Filmer HL (2013). TMS to V1 spares discrimination of emotive relative to neutral body postures. Neuropsychologia, 51(13), 2485-2491.
2012
Elchlepp H, Lavric A, Mizon G, Monsell S (2012). A brain-potential study of preparation for and execution of a task-switch with stimuli that afford only the relevant task.
Human Brain Mapping,
33, 1137-1154.
Abstract:
A brain-potential study of preparation for and execution of a task-switch with stimuli that afford only the relevant task.
Behavioural and neurophysiological studies of task-switching have tended to employ ‘bivalent’ stimuli (which afford responses in two tasks). Using brain potential recordings, we investigated task-switching with ‘univalent’ stimuli affording responses in only one of the tasks, and compared the outcomes to those recently obtained with bivalent stimuli (Lavric et al. [2008]: Eur J
Neurosci 1-14), in order to examine two phenomena. First, when only univalent stimuli are presented, the processing of task cues becomes optional. Our results showed that in these circumstances linguistic (but not pictorial) cues were still effective in eliciting at least some degree of preparation for a taskswitch, as evidenced by the reduction in the error cost of switching at the longer preparation interval
and by a posterior switch-induced ERP positivity at about 450–800 ms in the cue-stimulus interval.
Second, single affordance stimuli not only reduced behavioural switch costs relative to bivalent stimuli; they also produced a smaller post-stimulus switch-induced negativity, consistent with the latter being a marker of conflict between task-sets. However, using stimuli not associated with responses in the
alternative task did not completely eliminate the negativity. We speculate that the residue reflects other sources of conflict: attention to the irrelevant perceptual dimension and/or persistence of task goals.
Abstract.
Forrest CLD, Elchlepp, Monsell, McLaren IPL (2012). Task switching without knowledge of the tasks. Cognitive Science. 1st - 1st Jan 2012.
Full text.
Monsell S (2012). The chronometrics of task-set control. Measuring the Mind Speed, control, and age, 9780198566427
2008
Lavric A, Mizon, G.A. Monsell, S. (2008). Neurophysiological signature of effective anticipatory task-set control: a task-switching investigation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 1016-1029.
2006
Monsell S, Mizon GA (2006). Can the task-cueing paradigm measure an endogenous task-set reconfiguration process?. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance, 32(3), 493-516.
2005
Tree JJ, Hirsh KW, Monsell S (2005). Inhibitory semantic priming: Does syntactic class play a role in determining competitor status?.
Journal of Neurolinguistics,
18(6), 443-460.
Abstract:
Inhibitory semantic priming: Does syntactic class play a role in determining competitor status?
Most current models of lexical or 'lemma' selection propose the parallel activation of a set of possible candidates where candidates compete to meet a 'best match' criterion. One method for testing the competitive activation hypothesis is to manipulate the recency with which a likely competitor word has been produced by priming it. Under certain assumptions one would predict that the point at which a target reaches criterion will be delayed if a competitor has been given such a head start. Implicit in the idea of competition among lemmas is the idea that the activation cohort is limited to items that share both semantic and syntactic features with the target item, as lemmas are argued to specify semantic and syntactic features of lexical items. We set out to explore the importance of syntactic class in determining the composition of the competitor cohort by comparing priming effects for semantically related items that either shared syntactic class - a noun priming a noun - or were from different syntactic classes - a verb priming a noun. We show that the competitor effect is a general one not limited to items drawn from the same syntactic class: giving either a related noun or a related verb a head start increases the time taken to produce the name of a pictured object. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract.
2004
Aron A, Monsell S, Sahakain B, Robbins TW (2004). A componential analysis of task-set switching deficits associated with lesions of left and right frontal cortex. Brain, 127(7), 1561-1573.
Monsell S. (2004). The chronometrics of task set control. In Duncan, J, Phillips, L & McLeod, P (Eds) Measuring the mind: Speed, control and age. In (Ed) , Oxford University Press.
2003
Monsell S, Yeung N (2003). Switching between tasks of unequal familiarity: the role of stimulus-attribute and response-set selection. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance, 29(2), 455-469.
Monsell S (2003). Task switching.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES,
7(3), 134-140.
Author URL.
Monsell S (2003). Task-set reconfiguration processes do not imply a control homunuculus: Reply to Altmann.
Trends Cogn Sci,
7(8), 341-342.
Author URL.
Monsell S, Sumner P, Waters H (2003). Task-set reconfiguration with predictable and unpredictable task switches.
Mem Cognit,
31(3), 327-342.
Abstract:
Task-set reconfiguration with predictable and unpredictable task switches.
Participants switched frequently between high/low and odd/even classification of a digit. The interval between a task cue and the next digit varied between blocks. In Experiment 1, the task switched predictably every two, four, or eight trials. In Experiment 2, switching predictably every four trials was compared with random switching. With predictable switching, the cost was limited to the first trial of a run. Random switching produced a more gradual approach to asymptotic performance. After one performance, control processes attenuate the resulting change in task-set bias if a further switch is likely, but this strategic modulation is soon overwhelmed by task-set priming through further performances. Preparation reduced switch costs but not interference from the irrelevant attribute: Control of interference appears to be reactive, not proactive. Switch costs did not increase with run length, suggesting that retrieval of the task set last associated with the stimulus did not contribute to switch costs.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Aron AR, Watkins, L. Sahakian, B.J. Monsell, S. Barker BA, Robbins TW (2003). Task-set switching deficits in early-stage Huntington's disease: Implications for basal ganglia function. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 629-642.
Yeung N, Monsell S (2003). The effects of recent practice on task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 919-936.
2002
Nieuwenhuis S, Monsell, S. (2002). Residual costs in task switching: Testing the "failure to engage" hypothesis. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 86-92.
2001
Monsell S, Taylor, T.J. Murphy, K. (2001). Naming the color of a word: is it responses or task-sets that compete?. Memory and Cognition, 29, 137-151.
2000
Monsell S, Driver J (2000). Banishing the control homunculus.
Attention and Performance,
18, 1-32.
Abstract:
Banishing the control homunculus
We define the problem addressed at the eighteenth Attention and Performance symposium as that of explaining how voluntary control is exerted over the organization and activation of cognitive processes in accordance with current goals, without appealing to an all-powerful but ill-defined " executive" or controlling "homunculus." We provide background to the issues and approaches represented in the seven parts of the volume and review each chapter, mentioning also some other contributions made at the symposium. We identify themes and controversies that recur through the volume: the multiplicity of control functions that must be invoked to explain performance even of simple tasks, the limits of endogenous control in interaction with exogenous influences and habits, the emergence of control through top-down "sculpting" of reflexive procedures, the debate between structural and strategic accounts of capacity limits, the roles of inhibition and working memory, the fertile interactions between functional and neural levels of analysis. We identify important control issues omitted from the symposium. We argue that progress is at last being made in banishing - or fractionating - the control homunculus.
Abstract.
Monsell S, Driver J (2000). Banishing the control homunculus. In Monsell S, Driver J (Eds.)
Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII, Cambridge MA: M I T PRESS, 3-32.
Abstract:
Banishing the control homunculus
Abstract.
Monsell S, Driver J (eds)(2000). Control of cognitive processes: Attention and Performance XVIII. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
Monsell S, Yeung, N. Azuma, R. (2000). Reconfiguration of task-set: is it easier to switch to the weaker task?. Psychological Research, 63, 250-264.
1999
Shafiullah, M. & Monsell, S. (1999). The cost of switching between Kanji and Kana while reading Japanese. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14, 567-607.
1998
Monsell, S. & Hirsh, K. W. (1998). Competitor priming in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1495-1520.
Jones-Chesters MH, Monsell S, Cooper PJ (1998). The disorder-salient stroop effect as a measure of psychopathology in eating disorders.
Int J Eat Disord,
24(1), 65-82.
Abstract:
The disorder-salient stroop effect as a measure of psychopathology in eating disorders.
OBJECTIVES: the aim was to assess, using sophisticated experimental methods, the amount of interference on a Stroop task in patients with eating disorders, under conditions of blocked and mixed stimulus presentation. METHODS: Patients with eating disorders and non-patients named the color in which a word was displayed. Words came from an experimental category (food/eating, weight/shape, "emotion," or affectively neutral word) or from a matched set of unrelated control words. Color-naming latencies were compared in a blocked condition, with words from just one set in each block, and in a mixed condition, with a mixture of word types in each block. RESULTS: in the mixed condition, patients took longer to color-name food/eating and weight/shape words than control words. With blocked presentation this effect was magnified; and patients with bulimia nervosa also showed increased naming-latency for "emotion" words. Non-patients showed neither effect and no group showed interference for the affectively neutral category. Patients' interference effects correlated reliably with self-reported depression and anxiety. DISCUSSION: Sources of interference and methodological and diagnostic implications are discussed.
Abstract.
Author URL.
1995
Rogers RD, Monsell S (1995). Costs of a Predictable Switch Between Simple Cognitive Tasks.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,
124(2), 207-231.
Abstract:
Costs of a Predictable Switch Between Simple Cognitive Tasks
In an investigation of task-set reconfiguration, participants switched between 2 tasks on every 2nd trial in 5 experiments and on every 4th trial in a final experiment. The tasks were to classify either the digit member of a pair of characters as even/odd or the letter member as consonant/vowel. As the response-stimulus interval increased up to 0.6 s, the substantial cost to performance of this predictable task-switch fell: Participants could partially reconfigure in advance of the stimulus. However, even with 1.2 s available for preparation, a large asymptotic reaction time (RT) cost remained, but only on the 1st trial of the new task. This is attributed to a component of reconfiguration triggered exogenously, i. e. only by a task-relevant stimulus. That stimuli evoke associated task-sets also explains why RT and switch costs increased when the stimulus included a character associated with the currently irrelevant task. © 1995 American Psychological Association.
Abstract.
Hall G, Monsell S (1995). Editorial. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 48(1).
Hall G, Monsell S (1995). Editorial. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B, 48(1).
1994
Monsell S (1994). Editorial. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology, 47(1), 1-3.
Wheeldon LR, Monsell S (1994). Inhibition of Spoken Word Production by Priming a Semantic Competitor.
Journal of Memory and Language,
33(3), 332-356.
Abstract:
Inhibition of Spoken Word Production by Priming a Semantic Competitor
In three experiments, naming a pictured object (e.g. shark) was retarded when a competing word (e.g. whale) had been recently elicited by a definition. In Experiment 1, a strong effect was obtained with two trials intervening between prime and probe, but no effect with a lag of several minutes. In Experiment 2, the effect was stronger with two intervening trials than with none. In Experiment 3, in which every picture was also immediately preceded by its category name, this contrast reversed. An increase in the availability of a competing candidate appears to retard word selection during lexicalization-as predicted by certain competitive activation models. This persisting effect is mitigated at zero lag by transient facilitation due to the spread of activation from related concepts. © 1994 Academic Press, Inc.
Abstract.
1992
Monsell S, Patterson KE, Graham A, Hughes CH, Milroy R (1992). Lexical and Sublexical Translation of Spelling to Sound: Strategic Anticipation of Lexical Status.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
18(3), 452-467.
Abstract:
Lexical and Sublexical Translation of Spelling to Sound: Strategic Anticipation of Lexical Status
Two experiments on oral reading of single words compared naming performance in pure blocks of nonwords or exception words with performance in blocks of randomly mixed nonwords and exception words. Ss named exception words faster and made fewer regularization errors when they were not also prepared for nonwords. These data suggest Ss inhibit or ignore the computation of assembled phonology when only exception words are expected. Ss named nonwords faster, but no more accurately, when low-frequency exception words were not also anticipated. Thus, Ss' readiness to execute assembled phonology appears to be adjusted in relation to the likely time course of retrieval of learned pronunciations, when the latter must be attended to. This evidence for strategic dissociation between sublexical and lexical translation is discussed in relation to current models.
Abstract.
Monsell S, Matthews GH, Miller DC (1992). Repetition of lexicalization across languages: a further test of the locus of priming.
Q J Exp Psychol A,
44(4), 763-783.
Abstract:
Repetition of lexicalization across languages: a further test of the locus of priming.
Wheeldon and Monsell (this issue) found that production of a word in response to a definition had a large and long-lasting facilitatory effect on latency for later production of the same word to name a pictured object, and that this priming effect was not due to repeated production of the phonological word-form per se. This paper reports a further test of the locus of the effect. Welsh-English bilinguals named pictured objects in Welsh. Half the words were primed either by their earlier production in Welsh in response to Welsh definitions or by production of their equivalents in English in response to English definitions. Substantial facilitation resulted from prior production in the same language, none from prior production in the other language--provided that the equivalents differed in phonological form. Given that priming results neither from repeated activation of a meaning when different phonological forms are produced, nor from repetition of the same phonological form in response to different meanings, the priming effect must be localized in the connection between a word's meaning and its phonological form. We also put forward an account of bilingual lexicalization that accommodates this result together with some evidence indicating that production of words in one language is not wholly insulated from the "availability" of words in the other.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Wheeldon LR, Monsell S (1992). The locus of repetition priming of spoken word production.
Q J Exp Psychol A,
44(4), 723-761.
Abstract:
The locus of repetition priming of spoken word production.
Naming of a pictured object is substantially facilitated when the name has recently been produced in response to a definition or read aloud. The first experiment shows this to be so when over one hundred trials have intervened, and when the subjects can name the pictures quickly and accurately in the absence of priming. The locus of the effect must be in lexicalization processes subsequent to picture identification and is unlikely to be mediated by recovery of an episodic trace. Two further experiments show that prior production of a homophone of the object's name is not an effective prime, (although slower responses are somewhat facilitated when the homophones are spelled the same). Hence the facilitation observed for repeated production of the same word cannot be associated with the repetition of the phonological form per se. We conclude that the facilitation must be associated with retrieval of the semantic specification or the process of mapping of that specification to its associated phonological representation.
Abstract.
Author URL.
1990
MONSELL S (1990). FREQUENCY-EFFECTS IN LEXICAL TASKS - REPLY.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL,
119(3), 335-339.
Author URL.
1989
Monsell S, Doyle MC, Haggard PN (1989). Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: where are they?.
J Exp Psychol Gen,
118(1), 43-71.
Abstract:
Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: where are they?
Compared the effect of frequency on lexical decision time (LDT) with that on reaction time (RT) in four other tasks, for the same words and subjects. Exp. 1 yielded an effect on semantic categorization RT (person vs. thing) similar in size and form to the effect on LDT. Exp. 2 yielded a substantial effect for syntactic categorization (noun vs. adjective), although weaker than the effect on LDT. In Exp. 3, the effect on naming RT for stress-final disyllabic words was identical to that on LDT, whereas the effect for stress-initial words was weaker. Exp. 4 showed no effect of frequency on delayed naming RT. The data undermine recent arguments for a (mainly) postidentification task-specific locus of frequency effects but are compatible with the older assumption (also characteristic of new PDP learning models) that lexical identification is a major locus of frequency effects (perhaps together with retrieval of meaning or phonology). But effects at that locus may be masked or diluted by other processes.
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Author URL.
1988
STERNBERG S, KNOLL RL, MONSELL S, WRIGHT CE (1988). MOTOR PROGRAMS AND HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE CONTROL OF RAPID SPEECH.
PHONETICA,
45(2-4), 175-197.
Author URL.
1987
MONSELL S (1987). NONVISUAL ORTHOGRAPHIC PROCESSING AND THE ORTHOGRAPHIC INPUT LEXICON.
ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE(12), 299-323.
Author URL.
1986
Monsell S (1986). Programming of complex sequences: Evidence from the timing of rapid speech and other productions. Experimental Brain Research, SUPPL. 15, 72-86.
1984
MONSELL S (1984). COMPONENTS OF WORKING MEMORY UNDERLYING VERBAL SKILLS - a DISTRIBUTED CAPACITIES VIEW - a TUTORIAL REVIEW.
ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE,
10, 327-350.
Author URL.
1981
MONSELL S (1981). REPRESENTATIONS, PROCESSES, MEMORY MECHANISMS - THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF COGNITION.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE,
32(5), 378-390.
Author URL.
1978
Monsell S (1978). Recency, immediate recognition memory, and reaction time.
Cognitive Psychology,
10(4), 465-501.
Abstract:
Recency, immediate recognition memory, and reaction time
Four classes of possible mechanisms for short-term item recognition are distinguished: (I) pure list-search, (II) direct-access activation (or trace strength) discrimination, (III) mixtures (of I and II), and (IV) response-association. Manipulations of recency, particularly of negative probe items, provide critical tests between them. Two experiments are reported using Sternberg' s 1966 varied-set reaction time paradigm, coupled with procedures intended to minimize rehearsal and control the recency of probes and memory set items. RT and error rate were greater for negative probe items that had recently been presented than for items less recently presented, and this effect increased with positive set size. In contrast, positive RT was, except for the initial item, a decreasing function of recency (= serial position), and there was no additional effect of set size per se. A brief filled delay between list and probe increased positive RT but not the slope of the set size function. These and other findings appear to reject models of Classes I and IV and, while implying some direct discrimination of an item's recency, require modification of the models of Classes II and III. The implications are discussed with respect to the relation between the two versions of Sternberg's paradigm and also in connection with facilitatory "priming" effects in memory. © 1978.
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