Dual-Task Performance and Visual Attention Switching

Abstract

Four factors were manipulated to assess the possible performance decrements caused by concurrent performance of a visual and an auditory task. For the visual task, memory load and the degree of attentional switching were manipulated. The nature of the memoric information and the intelligibility of the speech signal in the auditory task were also manipulated. The level of single-task performance was compared with the performance of the same task under dual-task conditions to determine which factor lead to the greatest dual-task decrement. The results demonstrate that memory load and the nature of the memory representation had little effect on the performance of a concurrent task. Visual attention switching had a large effect on the amount of dual-task decrement.