Researchers from the lab of HWNI member Amitai Shenhav, associate professor of psychology, and colleagues have found that switching goals while doing a task impairs performance. In the new study, published in the journal Psychological Review, the researchers asked study participants to do the same cognitively challenging task over and over, but changed whether they were instructed to focus on accuracy or speed. The researchers found that switching between these goals caused reduced performance, since the brain needs time to adjust to a new goal. The less time the participants had to switch, the worse their performance became. These results suggest that it is more effective to group tasks with similar goals together instead of switching between different types of goals.
September 2, 2025
Amitai Shenhav