Elsevier

Acta Psychologica

Volume 205, April 2020, 103043
Acta Psychologica

Sequential modulation of across-task congruency in the serial reaction time task

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103043Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The study aims to explain detrimental effect of dual-tasking on sequence learning.

  • It reveals evidence for across-task integration of the SRTT and random task.

  • Compounds of dual-tasking events can be stored and retrieved as episodes.

  • Predicted lack of across-task conflict benefits dual-tasking.

Abstract

While detrimental effects of dual-tasking on the acquisition and usage of sequence knowledge in the Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT) have been attributed to the integration of regularly and randomly sequenced events, direct evidence for across-task integration has been scarce. In two experiments, we paired two spatial tasks: A visual-manual SRTT (serial reaction time task) of length 4 and a two-choice task with random order of stimuli. We reasoned that across-task integration might result in SRTT- and two-choice task events being stored and retrieved together. Therefore, RT might be influenced by current congruency as well as by whether it is repeated or altered from the congruency level encountered for this SRTT event in the last loop of the sequence. We observed such a modulation in two experiments, suggesting that across-task integration indeed takes place and that the detrimental effect of dual-tasking on sequence learning is, at least in parts, based on across-task integration.

Section snippets

General method

In both experiments, we used a combination of a visual-manual two-choice task (primary task, left hand) with a four-choice SRTT (secondary task, right hand). Differently from many SRTT studies with four stimuli and four response locations in a horizontal row (e.g., Deroost & Soetens, 2006; Röttger et al., 2019), the SRTT stimuli in this study were presented on either up, left, right, or down side of the two-choice task. Program code, data and Appendix are available online (Zhao, 2020, //osf.io/gvknb/

Participants

A-priori power analysis was conducted using G*Power 3.1 (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) to test the difference between random, ordinal position and fixed sequence blocks (one number of groups and three numbers of measurements) using ANOVA repeated measures within factors test, an effect size (ηp2 = 0.25), and α = 0.05. Result indicated that a sample size of 28 would be sufficient to achieve a statistical power (1 − β) = 0.80. Thirty volunteers (20 females) in the lab at the University

Experiment 2

The sequential modulation of the across-task congruency effect needs a replication. This is also true for the lack of effects of ordinal position sequence knowledge and of local repetition constraints in Experiment 1. Based on this focus, Experiment 2 contained fixed sequence and ordinal position random blocks only with 5 blocks and was otherwise identical to Experiment 1.

General discussion

Pairing the SRTT with a task with a random sequence of stimuli has been reported to suppress acquisition (Schwarb & Schumacher, 2012) as well as usage of already acquired sequence knowledge (e.g., Frensch, Lin, & Buchner, 1998). In past studies, across-task integration has been used as an explanation for such detriments (Rah, Reber, & Hsiao, 2000; Röttger et al., 2019; Schmidtke & Heuer, 1997). When pairing the SRTT with a task with random sequence of stimuli and responses, compound encoding

Funding acknowledgement

This research was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), grants no [GA 2246/1-1; HA 5447/11-1] within SPP 1772 – Priority Program Human performance under multiple cognitive task requirements: From basic mechanisms to optimized task scheduling.

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    All authors declare to have no competing interest.

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