Effects of extensive dual-task practice on processing stages in simultaneous choice tasks
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Effects of extensive dual-task practice on processing stages in simultaneous choice tasks Tilo Strobach & Roman Liepelt & Harold Pashler & Peter A. Frensch & Torsten Schubert
Published online: 12 April 2013 # Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2013
Abstract Schumacher et al. Psychological Science 12:101–108, (2001) demonstrated the elimination of most dual-task costs (“perfect time-sharing”) after extensive dual-task practice of a visual and an auditory task in combination. For the present research, we used a transfer methodology to examine this practice effect in more detail, asking what task-processing stages were sped up by this dual-task practice. Such research will be essential to specify mechanisms associated with the practice-related elimination of dual-task costs. In three experiments, we introduced postpractice transfer probes focusing on the perception, central response-selection, and final motorresponse stages. The results indicated that the major change achieved by dual-task practice was a speed-up in the central response-selection stages of both tasks. Additionally, perceptual-stage shortening of the auditory task was found to contribute to the improvements in timesharing. For a better understanding of such time-sharing,
T. Strobach (*) : T. Schubert (*) Department Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802 Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected] e-mail:[email protected] T. Strobach : P. A. Frensch : T. Schubert Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany R. Liepelt Institute for Psychology, Junior Group “Neurocognition of Joint Action”, Universität Muenster, Muenster, Germany H. Pashler Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
we discuss the contributions of the present findings in relation to models of practiced dual-task performance. Keywords Dual-task performance . Practice effects . Processing stage shortening When people execute two tasks simultaneously, performance in one or in both of the tasks is often impaired, as indicated by an increase in processing time and/or in error rate (e.g., Kahneman, 1973; Pashler, 1994; Schubert, Fischer, & Stelzel, 2008; Telford, 1931; Welford, 1952). Performance impairments in dual-task relative to single-task contexts are referred to as dual-task costs and have been attributed to processing limitations at the response-selection stage (Pashler, 1994; Schubert, 1999). A typical explanation for dual-task costs is that the response-selection process in one task is postponed until response selection in the other task has been completed. This postponement has been attributed to structural (Pashler, 1994) and/or strategic (Meyer & Kieras, 1997) processing limitations within, as well as to cross-talk (e.g., Hommel, 1998; Huestegge & Koch, 2009) or capacity sharing between, the tasks (Tombu & Jolicœur, 2004). A number of studies have shown that dual-task processing is optimized as a result of extended dual-task practice (e.g., Ahissar, Laiwand, & Hochstein, 2001; Hirst,
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