Investigating task order control in dual-task situations: The influence of instruction, task complexity, and practice

研究双任务情况下的任务顺序控制：指令、任务复杂性和实践的影响

• 批准号: 274923740
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Torsten Schubert
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung Allgemeine Psychologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Priority Programmes
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-31 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/274923740?language=en
• 关键词: Investigating; task; order; control; dual

Performance costs (in reaction times and/or error rates) occur in situations in which people perform two tasks simultaneously compared to their isolated performance. Many theorists explain these dual-task costs with a bottleneck mechanism that requires serial processing of certain processes in dual-task situations. Many previous studies have provided valuable knowledge about the nature of the bottleneck, i.e. whether it is caused by structural capacity limitation or a strategic choice and whether it is an all-or-none or a shared bottleneck. However, despite this knowledge, it is still open which mechanisms regulate and control the order of the tasks before they enter the bottleneck and how subjects can flexibly change the order of the tasks at and before the bottleneck.While the traditional bottleneck model assumed a passive mechanism for determining task order, which predicts that that task is processed first which arrives first the bottleneck and which does not involve any further control mechanisms, the current project is based on an alternative approach. As a main presumption, we assume that the involvement of a bottleneck leads to competition between processes for access to the bottleneck and this competition requires the recruitment of additional control mechanisms. The appropriate order of the processes at the bottleneck needs to be planned, controlled, and regulated by additional processes. How do these control processes work? What are their specific mechanisms and principles? The aim of the current project is to investigate these questions. For that purpose the research on the first project phase was based on a task order control model, which allowed us formulating different predictions about different mechanisms regulating task order.In the current proposal we will continue to investigate task order control in dual tasks. The overarching goal of the new studies is the elaboration of a proposed task order control model that combines assumptions about bottleneck processing, executive task order control processes, and working memory mechanisms. Prior work in the first phase showed suitability of the model for understanding important aspects of task order control in dual tasks, but, additionally, provided new findings, which require further specification and testing in the second phase.For that purpose we aim to conduct several series of experiments, which are aimed at testing the predictions of the task order control model, 1) concerning the content and the structure of task order control representations guiding task processing in dual tasks, and 2) concerning the influence of different factors on the efficiency of task order control, such as the order instruction, the amount of working memory load, the type of the order decision criterion, and of individual task order preferences. Further, 3) we want to investigate to which degree task order control can be optimized by training and what the neural implementation of the control is.

性能成本(反应时间和/或错误率)发生在人们同时执行两个任务的情况下，而不是单独执行。许多理论家用一种瓶颈机制来解释这些双任务成本，该机制要求在双任务情况下对某些进程进行连续处理。以往的许多研究已经为瓶颈的性质提供了宝贵的知识，即它是由结构能力限制还是战略选择造成的，是全有或全无还是共同的瓶颈。然而，尽管有了这些知识，在任务进入瓶颈之前，哪些机制来调节和控制任务的顺序，以及主体如何灵活地改变瓶颈时和瓶颈之前的任务顺序，仍然是开放的。传统的瓶颈模型假设了一种被动的确定任务顺序的机制，该机制预测任务首先到达瓶颈，并且不涉及任何进一步的控制机制，而本项目基于另一种方法。作为一个主要假设，我们假设瓶颈的介入会导致进程之间为进入瓶颈而竞争，这种竞争需要招募额外的控制机制。位于瓶颈的流程的适当顺序需要由其他流程进行计划、控制和规范。这些控制程序是如何工作的？它们的具体机制和原则是什么？当前项目的目的就是调查这些问题。为此，项目第一阶段的研究基于任务顺序控制模型，该模型允许我们对不同的任务顺序调节机制提出不同的预测。在本方案中，我们将继续研究双重任务中的任务顺序控制。新研究的主要目标是提出一个任务顺序控制模型，该模型结合了关于瓶颈加工、执行任务顺序控制过程和工作记忆机制的假设。第一阶段的工作表明了该模型对于理解双任务中任务顺序控制的重要方面的适用性，但也提供了新的发现，需要在第二阶段进行进一步的规范和检验。为此，我们打算进行一系列实验，目的是检验任务顺序控制模型的预测，1)关于指导双重任务中任务处理的任务顺序控制表征的内容和结构，2)关于不同因素对任务顺序控制效率的影响，如顺序指令、工作记忆负荷量、顺序决策准则的类型、和个人任务顺序偏好。此外，3)我们想要研究通过训练可以将任务顺序控制优化到什么程度，以及控制的神经实现是什么。