On the Role of Attention in Working Memory for Response Selection in Task Switching

Oberauer’s (2019) analysis and related research on how working memory and attention are linked can provide insight regarding how responses are selected in task-switching situations. One mechanism for response selection—the mediated route—categorizes stimuli with respect to both tasks, then activates responses based on instructed category–response associations. The author discusses two proposals for how these associations are represented in working memory, both of which seem consistent with the idea that attention selects or prioritizes the relevant-task associations, enabling accurate response selection. A broader implication of the representation and operation of the mediated route is that nominal task switching might reflect concurrent multitasking within the cognitive system (constrained by attention in working memory), raising the issue of how task switching should be characterized.