“Smart inhibition”: electrophysiological evidence for the suppression of conflict-generating task rules during task switching

A major challenge for task switching is maintaining a balance between high task readiness and effectively ignoring irrelevant
task rules. This calls for finely tuned inhibition that targets only the source of interference without adversely influencing
other task-related representations. The authors show that irrelevant task rules generating response conflict are inhibited, causing their inefficient execution on the next trial (indicating the presence
of competitor rule suppression[CRS];Meiran, Hsieh, & Dimov, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition,
36, 992–1002, 2010). To determine whether CRS influences task rules, rather than target stimuli or responses, the authors focused on the processing of the task cue before the target stimulus
was presented and before the response could be chosen. As was predicted, CRS was found in the event-related potentials in
two time windows during task cue processing. It was also found in three time windows after target presentation. Source localization
analyses suggest the involvement of the right dorsal prefrontal cortex in all five time windows.