“Just do it when you get a chance”: the effects of a background task on primary task performance

Atten Percept Psychophys

2018

Performing many actions at the same time is usually associated with performance costs. However, recent eye-tracking evidence indicates that under specific conditions, inhibiting a secondary response can be more costly than executing it, resulting in dual-action benefits. Here, we show that performance gains due to the absence of inhibitory control demands in dual-action trials are not limited to saccades as a response modality. In our study, participants had to react to a visually presented directional word by either reading the stimulus aloud (vocal modality), pressing the corresponding arrow key on a keyboard (manual modality), or both. Crucially, manual error rates were significantly lower when participants had to respond with both a button press and naming than when they had to respond with naming only. More specifically, in vocal-only conditions we observed a significant percentage of false-positive manual responses, suggesting difficulties with inhibiting an unwarranted manual action. Thus, our results indicate that difficulties associated with single- (vs. dual-) action control are a stable, domain-general phenomenon that likely arises whenever execution-related demands are accompanied by substantial additional inhibitory control demands.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The hard work of doing nothing: Accounting for inhibitory costs during multiple action control

Raettig

Atten Percept Psychophys

2018

“…While this might basically be the case (since costs might be relatively low and are therefore tolerable), this claim is certainly a bit exaggerated, given recent work where these costs are measured more explicitly (cf. Miller & Durst, 2014. Hence, we have to tackle the issue of what effectively is manipulated by having an effort-instruction trials mixed into a design with standard trials.…”

Section: It Becomes Evident Frommentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobilizing cognition for speeded action: try-harder instructions promote motivated readiness in the constant-foreperiod paradigm

Steinborn

Langner

2016

Psychological Research

We examined the effect of motivational readiness on cognitive performance. An important but still not sufficiently elaborated question is whether individuals can voluntarily increase cognitive efficiency for an impending target event, given sufficient preparation time. Within the framework of the constant-foreperiod design (comparing reaction time performance in blocks of short and long foreperiod intervals, FPs), we examined the effect of an instruction to try harder (instructional cue: standard vs. effort) in a choice-reaction task on performance speed and variability. Proceeding from previous theoretical considerations, we expected the instruction to speed-up processing irrespective of FP length, while error rate should be increased in the short-FP but decreased in the long-FP condition. Overall, the results confirmed this prediction. Importantly, the distributional (ex-Gaussian and delta plot) analysis revealed that the instruction to try harder decreased distributional skewness (i.e., longer percentiles were more affected), indicating that mobilization ensured temporal performance stability (persistence).

“…Another set of studies in which a no-go BCE was assessed used a variant of the PRP paradigm, known as the prioritized-processing (PP) paradigm (Miller & Durst, 2014. In this variant, both Task 1 and Task 2 are choice/no-go tasks (i.e., two go responses are possible).…”

Section: A Closer Look At the No-go Bcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Experiment 1 of Miller and Durst (2014), participants gave both responses with either the left or the right index finger, and the fastest RT1s were observed in R1-R2 compatible trials, intermediate RT1s in R1-R2 incompatible trials, and the slowest RT1s if Task 2 was a no-go trial (even though none of these possible R2s actually had to be carried out). 1 The results revealed both an R1-R2 and a no-go BCE in this experiment, and similarly so in Experiments 1 and 2 of Miller and Durst (2015).…”

Section: A Closer Look At the No-go Bcementioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of a no-go Task 2 on Task 1 performance in dual - tasking: From benefits to costs

Janczyk

Atten Percept Psychophys

2016

When two tasks are combined in a dual-task experiment, characteristics of Task 2 can influence Task 1 performance, a phenomenon termed the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). Besides instances depending on the (spatial) compatibility of both responses, a particularly interesting example was introduced by Miller (2006): If Task 2 was a no-go task (i.e., one not requiring any action at all), responses were slowed in Task 1. Subsequent work, however, also reported the opposite result-that is, faster Task 1 responses in cases of no-go Task 2 trials. We report three experiments aiming to more precisely identify the conditions under which a no-go Task 2 facilitates or impedes Task 1 performance. The results suggest that an adverse no-go BCE is only observed when the Task 2 response(s) are sufficiently prepared in advance, yielding strong inhibitory control demands for Task 2 that eventually hamper Task 1 processing as well (i.e., inhibitory costs). If this is not the case, encountering a no-go Task 2 trial facilitates Task 1 performance, suggesting that the underlying task representation is reduced to a single - task. These results are discussed in the context of other recent work on BCEs and of recently suggested accounts of the no-go BCE.