The role of saccades in multitasking: towards an output-related view of eye movements

Abstract

The present paper presents an overview of research on the role of saccades in multitasking. Multitasking is known to cause performance costs in terms of increased response times and/or error rates. However, most of the previous research on multitasking was focused on manual and vocal action demands, and the role of eye movements has been largely neglected. As a consequence, saccade execution was mainly considered with respect to its functional role in gathering new visual information (input side of information processing). However, several more recent experiments confirmed that saccades both exhibit and cause dual-task costs in the context of other actions and should thus also be regarded as a response modality (output side of information processing). Theoretical implications as well as several open issues for future research will be outlined.

Cross-modal Action Complexity: Action- and Rule-related Memory Retrieval in Dual-response Control

“…A clear prediction of this assumption is that any increase in the number of task-relevant binding patterns should negatively affect dual-response coordination efficiency, which in the present study is defined as an inverse measure of dual-response costs, that is, the additional time to execute the same response in a response compound (i.e., in dual-response condition) than in isolation (i.e., in single-response condition). This prediction of the model by Huestegge and Koch (2010) and Huestegge (2011) has not been directly addressed yet in previous research on multiple-action control, and will be tested in Experiment 1 of the present study.…”

“…This was implemented to focus the analysis on the manual responses, for which all aspects of the design are comparable regarding the number of response alternatives (i.e., 4) and which exhibit the larger amount of dual-response costs (based on previous studies of this response combination, see Huestegge and Koch, 2009, 2010, 2013; Pieczykolan and Huestegge, 2014) and which therefore should be more sensitive to manipulations affecting dual-response situations. As outlined in the introduction and based on the framework by Huestegge and Koch (2010; see also Huestegge, 2011) we tested the hypothesis that manual dual-response costs are larger in the unconstrained (vs. constrained) response pattern condition, which would suggest that the number of task-relevant mapping patterns stored in memory affects dual-response coordination efficiency.…”

“…Thus, interference within such dual-response compounds cannot be readily explained by mechanisms referring to interference between independent rules (and separate response selection processes) for Task 1 and Task 2. As a response to this issue, Huestegge and Koch (2010; see also Huestegge, 2011, for an extended version) suggested an alternative framework of multiple-action control that does not involve two distinct response selection processes (one for each independent task) within a trial, but instead suggests one common “mapping selection” stage in which feature codes (e.g., spatial codes) are bound to task-relevant effector codes in accordance with task instructions. If, for example, a left auditory stimulus indicates the execution of a response compound consisting of a leftward saccade and a right manual key press, it is assumed that the mapping selection stage involves the implementation of a corresponding binding pattern among codes, that is, the binding of a “left” spatial code with the “saccade” effector code and of a “right” spatial code with a “manual” effector code.…”

When two actions are easier than one: How inhibitory control demands affect response processing

“…By adding the assumption that activation of a specific code may spread towards closely associated codes (Huestegge, 2011), the activation of a specific response-related code (e.g., "left") may erroneously activate a strongly associated code (e.g., referring to "saccade" modality), eventually producing an unwanted additional saccade response in single-manual conditions (see Fig. 1).…”

Crossmodal action: modality matters

“…These include domain-specific working memory interference (Hazeltine & Wifall, 2011), strategic effects based on task context (Israel & Cohen, 2011), modality-specific processing pathways (Schumacher et al, 2011;Stephan & Koch, 2011), interference based on common (spatial) codes (Atchley et al, 2011) or on shared visual modules (shape, color, word, see Israel & Cohen, 2011), and RSB models (at least for results within the PRP paradigm, see Israel & Cohen, 2011;Stelzel & Schubert, 2011). Further papers additionally discuss the role of cognitive control processes (Wylie et al, 2011), and within-and between-trial crosstalk (Huestegge, 2011).…”