Multitask environments, where individuals must select which task to perform at any given moment and switch rapidly among tasks, are a common part of most educational, work, and recreational environments. They are also ideal situations in which to study cognitive control. When multiple behavioral paths are available, control is necessary to coordinate input of perceptual information, retrieve information from memory, and direct behavior to competing tasks. A hallmark of human behavior is the flexibility to choose how, when, and even whether to respond to stimuli in our environments. The mechanisms of cognitive control that allow for this volitional behavior within a complex world have been an important area of research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The questions that drive my research are at the core of the scientific study of cognitive control. What are the interactions between stimulus-driven and goal-directed forces that determine cognitive control? Why does the ability to implement cognitive control vary across individuals, and across time and situations within the same individuals? What are the mental representations and processes that guide task selection and performance?
Kate Arrington
Professor
Ph.D. from the Michigan State University, Cognitive Psychology
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Research Areas
Additional Interests
- Cognitive control
- Human multitasking
- Cognition in applied settings
Research Statement
Biography
Professor Arrington earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology in 2002 from Michigan State University. After an NRSA-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University, she began her academic career at Lehigh in 2005. Professor Arrington is internationally-known for her research on cognitive control and its engagement during human multitasking. With support from NIH and NSF, she studies these topics in lab-based paradigms such as the voluntary task switching paradigm which she developed and more real-world settings such as in intelligent tutoring system use. She is deeply engaged with interdisciplinary research, currently directing Lehigh’s Institute for Data, Intelligent Systems, and Computation. She is engaged in promoting the field of cognitive psychology, serving as a rotating program officer in the NSF Perception, Action, and Cognition program (2015-17), and people within the field, serving as the chair of Women in Cognitive Science starting in 2021.
Mittelstädt, V., Mackenzie, I. G., Braun, D. A., & Arrington, C. M. (2023). Proactive and reactive processes jointly influence voluntary task choice behavior. Memory & Cognition.
Carr, T. H., Arrington, C. M., & Fitzpatrick, S. M. (2023). Integrating cognition in the laboratory with cognition in the real world: the time cognition takes, task fidelity, and finding tasks when they are mixed together. Frontiers in Psychology.
Liu, R., Walker, E., Friedman, L., Arrington, C.M., Solovey, E.T. (2020). fNIRS-based Classification of mind-wandering with personalized window selection for multimodal learning interfaces. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces.
Braun, D. A. & Arrington, C. M. (2018). Assessing the role of reward in task selection using a reward-based voluntary task switching paradigm. Psychological Research, 82, 54-64.
Reiman, K. M., Weaver, S. M., & Arrington, C. M. (2015). Encoding and choice in the task span procedure. Psychological Research, 79, 267-281.
Demanet, J., DeBaene, W., Arrington, C. M., & Brass, M. (2013). Biasing free choices: The role of the rostral cingulate zone in intentional control. Neuroimage, 72, 207-213.
Arrington, C. M., Weaver, S. M., & Pauker, R. L. (2010). Stimulus-based priming in task choice during voluntary task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 1060-1067.
Arrington, C. M. (2008). The effect of stimulus availability on task choice in voluntary task switching. Memory & Cognition, 36, 991-997.
Arrington, C. M., & Logan, G. D. (2004). The cost of a voluntary task switch. Psychological Science, 15, 610-615.
Teaching
Cognitive Psychology, Cognition in Practice and Policy, Research Methods and Statistics