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bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.09.24.753760

Establishing parallel and scalar measures of executive and semantic demand: an online norming study of matched, cross-domain judgement tasks

Bozianu, G.·Woolgar, A.·Lambon Ralph, M.·Halai, A.
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Abstract

Task demand has a long-standing history in experimental psychology, with numerous investigations of the capacity of different systems and processes under varying cognitive load. Whilst demand is a broadly used term in the literature, it is limited by a lack of cross-domain operationalisation, and thus can be a confound in many inter-domain investigations. To address this, we generated and validated two large-scale, open-source, widely applicable stimuli sets that: (i) can probe a wide, continuous range of objective behaviourally-measured processing demand, and (ii) can be directly matched across two highly contrastive cognitive domains (semantic and visuospatial processing). We normed these tasks in a large, online cohort of healthy adults, enabling future studies to utilise and benefit from reliable baseline measures of demand. Using a matching algorithm that takes into account both speed and accuracy, we then closely paired each semantic judgement trial with a trial of comparable difficulty from the corresponding visuospatial task to produce a cross domain matched set of over 400 items. Finally, we analysed the psycholinguistic and perceptual properties of these stimuli to explore some of the underlying factors driving demand.

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Bozianu, G., Woolgar, A., Lambon Ralph, M., Halai, A.. 2026-09-29. Establishing parallel and scalar measures of executive and semantic demand: an online norming study of matched, cross-domain judgement tasks. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.24.753760

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