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Gepubliceerd in:

01-11-2006 | Original Article

Modality pairing effects and the response selection bottleneck

Auteurs: Eliot Hazeltine, Eric Ruthruff

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 6/2006

Abstract

The present experiment examined the effects of input/output modality pairings on dual-task performance using the psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure. Four groups of participants performed two tasks composed of the same sets of inputs (visual and auditory) and the same sets of outputs (manual and vocal), but with different input/output modality pairings. Whereas modality pairings had only small effects on single-task reaction times, they had large effects on dual-task reaction times. The modality pairing effect cannot stem from differences in the difficulty of stimulus classification or response execution, because these task demands were the same across groups. The effect also does not appear to result from changes in stimulus–response compatibility. The present findings suggest dual-task interference arises not only from postponement of central operations (due to a central bottleneck), but also from a slowing of central operations whose magnitude is sensitive to the input/output modality pairings.

vorige artikel What causes residual dual-task interference after practice?

volgende artikel The neural effect of stimulus-response modality compatibility on dual-task performance: an fMRI study

Because both stimulus and response have only two levels, interactions between the two factors are essentially equivalent to a main effect of a single two-level factor (e.g., “Pairing”) indicating whether the participants used standard or nonstandard mappings. There are small differences between the two ANOVAs due to changes in the degrees of freedom, but these are subtle and barely affect the p values. Therefore, in every case, when an interaction involving stimulus and response is reported, the same result is obtained as a main effect of (or interaction involving) pairing in an ANOVA with the pairing factor replacing stimulus and response. As evident in the figures, these interactions consistently indicate performance costs for nonstandard pairs

Nearly identical results are obtained when the analysis is restricted to trials in which RT1 was less than 1000 ms. This additional criterion ensures that tasks processes on that trial are not overlapping and eliminates and additional 2–5% of the data

One explanation is that participants in the VVAM group withheld their vocal responses to Task 1 so as to avoid speaking at the same time the tone for Task 2 is presented. The Task 1 RTs for the VVAM group changed 19 ms from the long to the short SOA (Long: 572 ms; short: 592 ms; t(23)=1.91; p=0.07). Although, the difference is small, it is possible that these participants were unable to adjust their strategy after producing the Task 1 response. Presumably, an effect of delaying the Task 1 response on the magnitude of the PRP effect would be accounted for by subtracting out RT for Task 1. However, it is unclear exactly how participants’ concerns about speaking over the tone might affect their performance, so a more cautious approach is to compare only the data from the AMVV group to the two groups using a Standard mapping. The AMVV group used a Nonstandard mapping but did not include conditions in which the vocal response might occur at the same time as the auditory stimulus. The PRP effect for the AMVV group is significantly larger than the PRP effect for either the AVVM (t(23)=5.63; p<.0001) or the VMAV (t(23)=3.94; p<.001) groups.

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Titel: Modality pairing effects and the response selection bottleneck
Auteurs: Eliot Hazeltine
Eric Ruthruff
Publicatiedatum: 01-11-2006
Uitgeverij: Springer-Verlag
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 6/2006
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0017-3

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