FOR 6047:  Voluntary task switching: Cognitive processes and models to account for task choices

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 564829065

In everyday life, people frequently switch between tasks, that is they engage in one activity (like reading a paper), switch to another activity (like texting a short message) and then switch back to the first activity. In such scenarios, there are a multitude of determinants that can impact whether and when people stop engaging in one task and switch to another task. Current research on voluntary task switching suggests that external determinants such as task availability or reward as well as internal determinants such as learning history and task-choice strategies might explain when and why people switch tasks. However, we still do not understand comprehensively which factors determine why people switch tasks, how these factors interact and what mechanisms underlie task-choice decisions. The goal of this research unit is to identify determinants of voluntary task choices and to further develop and extend current theories about the mechanisms that account for task-choice decisions. This goal will be achieved by combining behavioral experimentation and computational modelling in service of the main research question: Why do people switch tasks? Local teams, including both experimental researchers and modelling experts, will combine their expertise to explain task-dependent switch-choices. Merging two previously distinct research disciplines – multitasking and choice behavior research – requires multiple local teams spread across Germany. Such a unit structure allows us to develop a benchmark list of robust findings and to develop and compare models that assume mechanisms for generating and integrating expectations of costs and benefits when people switch tasks. This distinctive collaboration of multitasking and choice experts will lead into a unified theoretical framework substantially advancing this new field of research.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• Coordination Funds (Applicant Raab, Markus )
• Factors influencing switching disutility - an experimental test and cognitive modelling of two-staged decision making in task switching (Applicants Glöckner, Andreas ;  Raab, Markus ;  Will, Laura )
• From representation to action: Uncovering how task representations shape voluntary task choice (Applicants Dreisbach, Gesine ;  Musslick, Sebastian )
• Individual determinants of response strategy formation in voluntary task switching (Applicants Brüning, Jovita ;  Ostwald, Dirk )
• Predictive processing during task decisions and task performance (Applicants Butz, Martin ;  Dignath, David )
• Reinforcement-learning models of voluntary task choices (Applicants Kiesel, Andrea ;  Klauer, Karl Christoph )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Markus Raab