How much cognition is in action? Using dual-tasks to explore the involvement of cognitive processes in action planning, programming and motor learning.

视觉行为是否不受次要任务的干扰？我们在第一个供资期提出了这个问题，并得出结论认为没有这种豁免权。相反，我们和其他人发现，行动和认知有时会以令人惊讶的方式相互作用。虽然并发的认知任务通常会降低视觉行为的效率，但并不是所有的视觉行为都受到这种诅咒的影响，相反，似乎存在对双重任务成本和认知渗透性的连续脆弱性。我们正在计划一系列的实验来探索这个连续体。一些视觉任务可能很复杂，要求运动调整到一个远端目标，其环境后果的预期或任务的复杂性和体力之间找到适当的平衡。对于这样的任务，我们预计高的精神负荷和伴随而来的高脆弱性资源限制，由于次要任务的要求。另一方面，有些行为似乎是如此根深蒂固，以至于演员甚至没有意识到触发行为的刺激就执行了这些行为。为了介绍这种情况，并提供机会，研究这种类型的行为的双任务成本，我们将利用扫视抑制现象，使用凝视的条件显示。在运动控制中发现的相同连续体也在运动学习中起作用。认知在运动学习的不同方面的作用将在小脑病变患者的样本中进行检查。最后，并发的认知活动并不是在所有情况下都会导致运动表现的普遍下降。有时，这些影响可能更具体，导致处理偏差，甚至可能是有帮助的。我们的最后一个目标是了解这种偏置效应何时发生，并测试在某些条件下心理负荷是否可以促进运动学习。

Are visuomotor acts immune to interference from a secondary task? We asked this question in our first funding period and concluded that there is no such immunity. Instead we and others found that action and cognition interact in sometimes surprising ways. While a concurrent, cognitive task will typically render the visuomotor behavior less efficient, not all visuomotor behaviors are affected by this curse, instead there seems to be a continuum of vulnerability to dual-task costs and cognitive penetrability. We are planning a series of experiments to explore this continuum. Some visuomotor tasks can be complex, demanding that the movement is adjusted to a distal goal, that its environmental consequences are anticipated or that the proper balance between task complexity and physical effort is found. For such tasks we expect high mental load and concomitantly high vulnerability to resource limitations due to secondary task demands. On the other hand we have acts which appear to be so engrained that the actor will perform them without even becoming aware of the stimulus that triggered the act. To introduce such situations and provide the opportunity to study the dual-task costs in this type of behavior we will exploit the phenomenon of saccadic suppression using gaze-contingent displays. The same continuum that is found in motor control is also at work in motor learning. The role of cognition in different aspects of motor learning will be examined in a sample of patients with cerebellar lesions. Finally, concurrent cognitive activity leads not in all instances to a general decrement of motor performance. Sometimes the effects can be more specific, causing a processing bias, or can be even helpful. Our last aim in this proposal is to understand when this biasing effect occurs and to test whether in some conditions mental load can facilitate motor learning.