TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pieczykolan, Aleks
A1  - Huestegge, Lynn
T1  - Cross-modal Action Complexity: Action- and Rule-related Memory Retrieval in Dual-response Control
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - Normally, we do not act within a single effector system only, but rather coordinate actions across several output modules (cross-modal action). Such cross-modal action demands can vary substantially with respect to their complexity in terms of the number of task-relevant response combinations and to-be-retrieved stimulus-response (S-R) mapping rules. In the present study, we study the impact of these two types of cross-modal action complexity on dual-response costs (i.e., performance differences between single- and dual-action demands). In Experiment 1, we combined a manual and an oculomotor task, each involving four response alternatives. Crucially, one (unconstrained) condition involved all 16 possible combinations of response alternatives, whereas a constrained condition involved only a subset of possible response combinations. The results revealed that preparing for a larger number of response combinations yielded a significant, but moderate increase in dual-response costs. In Experiment 2, we utilized one common lateralized auditory (e.g., left) stimulus to trigger incompatible response compounds (e.g., left saccade and right key press or vice versa). While one condition only involved one set of task-relevant S-R rules, another condition involved two sets of task-relevant rules (coded by stimulus type: noise/tone), while the number of task-relevant response combinations was the same in both conditions. Here, an increase in the number of to-be-retrieved S-R rules was associated with a substantial increase in dual-response costs that were also modulated on a trial-by-trial basis when switching between rules. Taken together, the results shed further light on the dependency of cross-modal action control on both action- and rule-related memory retrieval processes.
KW  - task rules
KW  - cross-modal action
KW  - dual tasks
KW  - dual-response costs
KW  - oculomotor control
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-157794
VL  - 8
IS  - 529
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Steinborn, Michael B.
A1  - Huestegge, Lynn
T1  - Phone conversation while processing information: chronometric analysis of load effects in everyday-media multitasking
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - This is a pilot study that examined the effect of cell-phone conversation on cognition using a continuous multitasking paradigm. Current theorizing argues that phone conversation affects behavior (e.g., driving) by interfering at a level of cognitive processes (not peripheral activity) and by implying an attentional-failure account. Within the framework of an intermittent spare–utilized capacity threading model, we examined the effect of aspects of (secondary-task) phone conversation on (primary-task) continuous arithmetic performance, asking whether phone use makes components of automatic and controlled information-processing (i.e., easy vs. hard mental arithmetic) run more slowly, or alternatively, makes processing run less reliably albeit with the same processing speed. The results can be summarized as follows: While neither expecting a text message nor expecting an impending phone call had any detrimental effects on performance, active phone conversation was clearly detrimental to primary-task performance. Crucially, the decrement imposed by secondary-task (conversation) was not due to a constant slowdown but is better be characterized by an occasional breakdown of information processing, which differentially affected automatic and controlled components of primary-task processing. In conclusion, these findings support the notion that phone conversation makes individuals not constantly slower but more vulnerable to commit attention failure, and in this way, hampers stability of (primary-task) information processing.
KW  - effort
KW  - vigilance
KW  - sustained attention
KW  - cell phone conversation
KW  - variability
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-158253
VL  - 8
IS  - 896
ER  -