Human performance under multiple cognitive task requirements: From basic mechanisms to optimized task scheduling
Sponsors (external)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Abstract
The planned research project aims to explore the cognitive management of attentional constraints arising from dynamically changing demands of task-specific stimulus selection. It will focus on processes of integrating and switching between task-specific attentional sets. To this end, we will present different tasks associated with varying fits of selection demands in close succession and analyze task performance as a function of attentional constraints in the other task. In this vein, we will assess persistence and preparation of task-specific attentional sets and strategic processing adjustments made to the context of specific task combinations, to the occurrence of task-specific attention-related manipulations, and to between-task stimulus contingencies. Assessment of attentional processing will include measures of performance costs in set witching conditions as well as patterns of set-specific interference such as the modulation of attentional weights assigned to different stimulus features or dimensions. We will also apply electrophysiological recording to gain information about early stages of stimulus processing affected by attentional adjustment. Investigations will be made with normal participants as well as with patients with chronic deficits of attention (i.e., Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD). Comparing groups of participants with and without ADHD, and contrasting groups associated with different subtypes of ADHD, will provide insights into specific impairments and abnormal strategies regarding flexibility and goal-directedness of stimulus processing in dual-task situations.
DFG-Projekt SPP1772
DFG-Projekt SPP1772
Website/URL