Why are dual-task costs reduced with ideomotor (IM) compatible tasks (see e.g. Greenwald & Shulman, 1973)? In a series of experiments, I tested the way in which task structure affects dual-task performance (Halvorson et al., 2012). The results suggest that in some cases, typical dual-task costs arise from task structure rather than response limitations. Further examination of this question has shown that dual-task costs cannot be predicted solely on the basis of the relationship between the stimuli and the responses; the relationship between the tasks, or the task pairing, plays a critical role in whether the tasks overlap and performance is impaired. A series of experiments using novel task pairings showed that when one task uses a spatial central code and the other uses a verbal central code, dual-task costs are eliminated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uiowa.edu/oai:ir.uiowa.edu:etd-5370 |
| Date | 01 July 2013 |
| Creators | Halvorson, Kimberly Mae |
| Contributors | Hazeltine, Eliot |
| Publisher | University of Iowa |
| Source Sets | University of Iowa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright 2013 Kimberly Mae Halvorson |
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