Abstract
AbstractWe report results from a driving simulator paradigm we developed to test the fine temporal effects of verbal tasks on simultaneous tracking performance. A total of 74 undergraduate students participated in two experiments in which they controlled a cursor using the steering wheel to track a moving target and where the dependent measure was overall deviation from target. Experiment 1 tested tracking performance during slow and fast target speeds under conditions involving either no verbal input or output, passive listening to spoken prompts via headphones, or responding to spoken prompts. Experiment 2 was similar except that participants read written prompts overlain on the simulator screen instead of listening to spoken prompts. Performance in both experiments was worse during fast speeds and worst overall during responding conditions. Most significantly, fine scale time-course analysis revealed deteriorating tracking performance as participants prepared and began speaking and steadily improving performance while speaking. Additionally, post-block survey data revealed that conversation recall was best in responding conditions, and perceived difficulty increased with task complexity. Our study is the first to track temporal changes in interference at high resolution during the first hundreds of milliseconds of verbal production and comprehension. Our results are consistent with load-based theories of multitasking performance and show that language production, and, to a lesser extent, language comprehension tap resources also used for tracking. More generally, our paradigm provides a useful tool for measuring dynamical changes in tracking performance during verbal tasks due to the rapidly changing resource requirements of language production and comprehension.
Funder
Faculty research grant, University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Cognitive Neuroscience,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Reference164 articles.
1. Aarts, L., & Van Schagen, I. (2006). Driving speed and the risk of road crashes: A review. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 38(2), 215–224.
2. Alario, F. X., Chainay, H., Lehericy, S., & Cohen, L. (2006). The role of the supplementary motor area (SMA) in word production. Brain Research, 1076(1), 129–143.
3. Allen, T. M., Lunenfeld, H., & Alexander, G. J. (1971). Driver information needs. Highway Research Record, 366(366), 102–115.
4. Alm, H., & Nilsson, L. (1994). Changes in driver behaviour as a function of handsfree mobile phones—A simulator study. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 26(4), 441–451.
5. Almor, A. (2008). Why does language interfere with vision-based tasks? Experimental Psychology, 55(4), 260–268.