Self-organized versus externally controlled task scheduling when facing multiple cognitive task requirements

在许多多任务情况下，我们可以自己决定按什么顺序安排必须执行的任务。在这个项目中，我们比较了参与者自己组织如何应对多个认知任务要求的条件和任务组织受到外部控制从而任务调度是预先确定的条件。此外，我们还研究了自愿任务转换(VTS)范式的变体中任务决策和任务绩效的相互作用，以考察多任务处理中的灵活性。在项目的第一部分，我们提出了三条研究路线。首先，我们发现，自己组织任务顺序的参与者从执行任务时看到替代任务的可能性中受益--表明切换任务时的成本较小，甚至相反。然而，任务组织也带来了成本，因为参与者表示，总体来说，与外部控制的任务切换相比，自我组织的努力更多。其次，我们进化了VTS范式的一种新变体--自组织任务切换范式。在这个范式下，我们能够表明，参与者选择任务顺序取决于与任务切换相比与任务重复相关的性能成本。第三，我们证明了当转换成本或任务难度不同时，参与者可以灵活地选择任务顺序。建议项目第二阶段的目标是基于这些发现，参与者根据转换成本来调整转换行为。在项目的第二部分，我们的目标是重点研究五个主题。首先，我们的目标是优化我们的自组织任务切换范式。其次，我们希望确定支持灵活适应的操作。第三，我们计划了一个合作项目，以检查跨多任务范例的灵活适应的个体间差异。第四，我们旨在阐述使参与者能够选择与任务绩效相关的任务顺序的机制。具体地说，我们问，调整任务选择以优化绩效的能力是否与感知时间的能力有关。第五，我们想要调查参与者是否使他们的任务选择适应了知觉和运动表现方面的困难。该项目特别有助于优先方案的灵活性观点。关于观点和目标(协调建议书的表1)，本项目侧重于目标(2)认知控制和意向设置。该项目还促进了灵活性观点、目标(1)能力共享和独立任务并行处理的基本机制以及目标(3)多任务绩效的情景影响，并从可塑性角度促进了目标：(3)专门知识和自动化；(4)提高多任务绩效的组织措施和干预。

In many multitasking situations, we can ourselves decide in which order we schedule the tasks that have to be performed. In this project, we compare conditions in which participants themselves organize how to cope with multiple cognitive task requirements with conditions in which task organization is externally controlled and thus task scheduling is pre-determined. In addition, we investigate the interplay of task decisions and task performance in variants of the voluntary task switching (VTS) paradigm to scrutinized flexibility in multitasking. In the first part of the project, we advanced three lines of research. First, we showed that participants who themselves organize task order profit from the possibility to see the alternative tasks while performing a task – indicated by smaller or even reversed costs when switching tasks. Yet, task organization also came across with costs, because participants indicated overall more effort in self-organized compared to externally controlled task switching. Second, we evolved a novel variant of the VTS paradigm, the self-organized task switching paradigm. With this paradigm, we were able to show that participants chose task order depending on the performance costs related to task switches compared to task repetitions. Third, we demonstrated that participants flexibly chose task order when either switch costs or task difficulty varied. The objectives for the second period of the proposed project are based on these findings that participants adapt switching behavior according to switch costs. In the second part of the project, we aim to focus on five research topics. First, we aim to optimize our self-organized task switching paradigm. Second, we want to identify manipulations that support flexible adaptation. Third, we plan a collaboration project to examine inter-individual differences in flexible adaptation across multitasking paradigms. Forth, we aim to elaborate on the mechanisms that enable participants to choose task order in relation to task performance. In detail, we ask whether the ability to adapt task choice to optimize performance relates to the ability to perceive time. And fifth, we want to investigate whether participants adapt their task choices to difficulties regarding perceptual and motor performance. This project specifically contributes to the priority program’s flexibility perspective. Regarding perspectives and objectives (Table 1 of the coordination proposal), this project is focused on the objective (2) Cognitive control and intentional set. The project also contributes to the flexibility perspective, objective (1) Basic mechanisms of capacity sharing and parallel processing of independent tasks and objective (3) Situational influence of multitask performance, and it contributes to objectives from the plasticity perspective: (3) Expertise and automatization and (4) Organizational measures and interventions improving multitask performance.