Codes and Modalities in Multiple Resources: A Success and a Qualification

Abstract

This article includes two sections that address the relevance of codes (verbal-spatial) and modalities (auditory-visual) in the multiple-resource model to the prediction of task interference. The first section describes an experiment in which either verbal or spatial decision tasks, responded to with either voice or keypress, were time-shared with second-order tracking. Decision problem difficulty was manipulated, and subjective workload as well as performance measures were assessed. The results provided support for the importance of the dichotomy between verbal and spatial processing codes in accounting for task interference. Interference with tracking was consistently greater and difficulty/performance trade-offs were stronger when the spatial decision task was performed and the manual response was used. The second section reviews literature on the interference between a continuous visual task and a discrete task whose modality is either auditory or visual. The review suggests that scanning produces a dominant cost to intramodal configurations when visual channels are separated in space; when visual separation is eliminated, however, the differences between cross-modal and intramodal performance may be best accounted for by a mechanism of preemption. Discrete auditory stimuli preempt the processing of a continuous visual task, facilitating their own processing at the expense of the continuous task. Such preemption does not occur when visual discrete and continuous tasks are time-shared.

Magnitude estimation of conceptual data dimensions for use in sonification.

“…Findings from the rich history of research on auditory perception point to distinct advantages of the auditory system over the visual system when dealing with temporal patterns and changes in data (e.g., Hartmann, 1997;Moore, 1997;Sanders & McCormick, 1993), and when the visual system is busy with another task (e.g., Brooks, 1968;Cohen, 1994;Wickens, 1992;Wickens & Liu, 1988). The growing body of research on sonification clearly indicates that auditory representation of data can, indeed, capitalize on these benefits of sound: in the representation of temporal and high-dimensional data (Kramer, 1993;McCabe & Rangwalla, 1994); in data monitoring tasks where the eyes are busy (Fitch & Kramer, 1994;Walker & Kramer, 1996); and in high-stress or critical conditions where crossmodal correlations would be of value (Begault, Wenzel, Shrum, & Miller, 1996).…”

Counting on working memory in arithmetic problem solving

“…However, this is still a developing area, and the evidence is by no means conclusive. Nevertheless, the distinction between the mechanism responsible for temporary storage of visual and spatial information and that for verbal information (the articulatory loop) is well established (e.g., Brooks, 1967;Farmer, Berman, & Fletcher, 1986;Logie et aI., 1990;Wickens & Liu, 1988).…”

Crossmodal action: modality matters

“…Furthermore, they assumed that some combinations of stimuli, central codes, and responses were more resistant to dual-task interference than other combinations. Thus, the idea of multiple resources represented a viable theoretical alternative to the content-blind RSB model (see also Wickens & Liu, 1988).…”