Abstract: Task switching is a basic manner in human’s cognitive activities, and the switching process is an important aspect of executive control, it is considered as controlling switching course between two tasks which compete the same cognitive resources. Switching cost refers to the performance difference in task-switch and task-repeat trials, which is an indicator of executive control. Some critical studies investigating switching process were reviewed in this paper, such as the components and sources of switching cost, behavioral experiments and neuro-physiological studying in this field. In the end, we speculate on the direction of future studies

Key words: switching process, switching cost, executive control, endogenous, exogenous