{
  "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.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "University of Cambridge"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "G. Bozianu"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Woolgar"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. Lambon Ralph"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "A. Halai"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dzsksvz18xkhz.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.24.753760",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.753760v1.full",
  "id": "dzsksvz18xkhz",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.753760v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7171010576",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.753760v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-24",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dzsksvz18xkhz.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:25:17Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.24.753760",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.753760v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Establishing parallel and scalar measures of executive and semantic demand: an online norming study of matched, cross-domain judgement tasks",
  "title_text": "Establishing parallel and scalar measures of executive and semantic demand: an online norming study of matched, cross-domain judgement tasks",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:25:17Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dzsksvz18xkhz",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}