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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 6/2006

01-11-2006 | Original Article

What causes residual dual-task interference after practice?

Auteurs: Eric Ruthruff, Eliot Hazeltine, Roger W. Remington

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 6/2006

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Abstract

Practice can dramatically reduce dual-task interference, but typically does not eliminate interference entirely. Residual interference after practice is especially large with certain non-preferred modality pairings (e.g., auditory–manual and visual–vocal). Does this residual interference imply the existence of a persistent central-processing bottleneck? To address this question, we transferred participants with previous dual-task practice to a psychological refractory period design. Although we observed residual dual-task costs in all four experiments, there was no evidence for a bottleneck, even with non-preferred modality pairings. We conclude that practice can eliminate the bottleneck limitation, but performance is still subject to other sources of interference, such as competition between central codes of the two tasks.
Voetnoten
1
If central stages shrink to negligible durations and are handled first-come, first-serve, with negligible switch costs, then a bottleneck limitation would produce no detectable interference between tasks. Such a model, however could never be ruled out and therefore has little scientific value. Moreover, the usual conception of a programmable central resource or a supervisory process does not naturally predict very short central stage durations. These short central stage durations are especially implausible when, as in Experiments 3 and 4, the mean RT is over 400 ms on an average (and over 500 ms on a substantial proportion of trials)
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
What causes residual dual-task interference after practice?
Auteurs
Eric Ruthruff
Eliot Hazeltine
Roger W. Remington
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/s00426-005-0012-8

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