Revealing mechanisms underlying backward crosstalk effects in multitasking

多任务处理，即同时处理多个任务，通常会以至少其中一个任务的性能为代价。这些成本通常被解释为人类信息处理的瓶颈。因此，理论上揭示的现象表明，次要任务的特征已经影响了主要任务的表现，即所谓的后向串音效应(BCE)。在前人工作的基础上，我们区分了两种类型的BCEs：一种是基于两个任务之间的兼容性关系，以及第二个任务中的自动反应激活与第一个任务中的反应选择相互作用的结果。第二个变体是在任务2中没有进行响应的情况下泛化抑制过程的结果，这减慢了第一个任务中的响应执行。这个项目的主要目的是(A)对这种区别进行实验测试，以及(B)开发这些反向串扰效应的数学模型。

Multitasking, that is, doing several tasks at the same time, usually comes with performance costs in at least one of the tasks. These costs are often explained with bottlenecks in human information processing. Theoretically revealing are thus phenomena showing that characteristics of a secondary task already effect performance in the primary task, so-called backward crosstalk effects (BCEs). Based on prior work we distinguish two types of BCEs: One variant is based on compatibility-relations between both tasks, and results from automatic response activation in the secondary task that interacts with response selection in the first task. The second variant results from generalizing inhibitory processes in case of no-go response in task 2 that slows down response execution in the first task. The main purposes of this project are (a) experimental tests of this distinction and (b) the development of mathematical models of these backward crosstalk effects.