Increased perception-action coupling through embodied cognition: How the human body improves the simultaneous performance of two tasks in basic and applied task contexts.

本项目旨在填补多任务绩效的基础认知研究与技术环境中应用双重任务需求的发展之间的差距。认知心理学的最新研究证实了直接影响知觉的动作成分与注意控制之间存在密切联系的假设。这种动作-知觉交互作用在高要求的复杂认知任务中日益普遍，这需要同时处理和协调多个刺激和反应。特别是在现实生活和应用环境中，任务控制往往是通过手持设备或触摸屏来实现的，从而将视觉-手动交互的焦点转移到共享的视觉空间注意区域。这个项目建立在我们实验室的最新发现的基础上，即刺激-手的接近确实可以改善双重任务的表现。这种近手优势表现在，与手远离刺激时相比，当手靠近刺激时，通过额外的任务处理改善了优先任务免受干扰的保护(即减少了任务间的干扰)。这是这一新研究领域中非常重要的一步，因为它为在刺激-手接近的条件下优化双重任务提供了可能性。然而，与此同时，这些改善双重任务的发现背后的认知机制到目前为止还没有明确说明。我们认为，传统的关于动作-知觉相互作用机制的理论假设不能很容易地转移到多任务绩效的情况下。相反，我们提出，在双任务条件下，每个任务特定的刺激与各自的任务特定的反应手一起操作，手与刺激的距离将促进每个任务中的知觉-动作耦合，从而促进两个任务的概念分离。因此，我们提出，将刺激呈现在靠近手的位置将有助于减少任务之间不必要的信息传输(任务间干扰)。本项目的目的是在三个工作包中测试和确认这一假设，其中包括调查可减少的干扰类型、确定潜在的机制、模式的特殊性以及利用手持设备、基于工具和手移动的反应将近手惠益效应转移到应用和现实生活中的双重任务情景。因此，目前在双重任务中处理动作-知觉交互作用的方法不仅将为刺激-手的接近如何影响双重任务的执行成本提供重要的理论科学信息，而且还有望为应用认知科学和技术开发提供重要的知识。

This project aims at filling the gap between basic cognitive research on multiple task performance on the one hand and current developments of applied dual-tasking demands in technical environments on the other. Recent research in cognitive psychology has substantiated the assumption of a strong connection between action components directly affecting perception and attentional control. Such action-perception interactions are increasingly prevalent in high-demanding complex cognitive tasks, which require the simultaneous processing and coordination of multiple stimuli and responses. Especially in real-life and applied contexts, task control is often implemented via handheld devices or touch screens and thus, the visual-manual interaction focus is shifted into a shared visuo-spatial attentional region. This project builds on recent findings in our labs that stimulus-hand nearness indeed improves dual tasking performance. This near-hand benefit was expressed in improved shielding of the prioritized task against interference by additional task processing (i.e., reduced between-task interference) when hands were located close to the stimuli compared to when they were located far from the stimuli. This is a highly important step in this new research area, as it offers possibilities for optimizing dual tasking in conditions of stimulus-hand nearness. At the same time, however, the cognitive mechanisms underlying these findings of improved dual tasking are to date highly underspecified. We reason that traditional theoretical assumptions about mechanisms underlying the action-perception interactions cannot be easily transferred to situations of multiple task performance. Instead, we propose that in dual-task conditions, in which each task-specific stimulus is operated with the respective task-specific response hand, the nearness of the hand to the stimulus will facilitate perception-action coupling in each task and will thus, facilitate the conceptual separation of two tasks. As a consequence, we propose that presenting stimuli close to the hands will help to reduce unwanted information-transmission between tasks (between-task interference). The present project aims at testing and confirming this assumption in three work-packages that include the investigation of the type of interference that can be reduced, the identification of the underlying mechanisms, the modality-specificity and the transfer of the near-hand-benefit effect to applied and real-life dual-task scenarios using hand-held devices, tool-based and hand-movement responses. The present approach of addressing action-perception interactions in dual tasking will therefore not only provide important theoretical scientific information on how stimulus-hand proximity affects dual-task performance costs, but promises also important knowledge for transfer into applied cognitive sciences and technical developments.