ABSTRACT
Executive control, the ability to produce meaningful, goal-directed behaviour and to flexibly adapt this behaviour according to changing situations, has preferentially been studied in multi-tasking contexts. A range of laboratory implementations of such contexts have been studied, such as the PRP paradigm (e.g., Pashler, 1984), the stop-signal paradigm (e.g., Logan & Cowan, 1984), and the selective interference paradigm (e.g., Baddeley, 1986). Each of these methodologies is suited to study particular aspects of cognitive control. The task-switching paradigm is one of these multi-tasking paradigms that allows to study the role of goal-directedness and flexibility in goal changes. This combination is possibly also the reason for its recent popularity as a research paradigm.
