Do small dual-task costs reflect ideomotor compatibility or the absence of crosstalk?

Kimberly Halvorson; Eliot Hazeltine

doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0813-8

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Do small dual-task costs reflect ideomotor compatibility or the absence of crosstalk?

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Do small dual-task costs reflect ideomotor compatibility or the absence of crosstalk?

Kimberly Halvorson and Eliot Hazeltine

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.22(5), pp.1403-1409

10/2015

DOI: 10.3758/s13423-015-0813-8

PMID: 25754530

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Abstract

Dual-task costs can be greatly reduced or even eliminated when both tasks use highly-compatible S-R associations. According to Greenwald (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 632–636, 2003), this occurs because the appropriate response can be accessed without engaging performance-limiting response selection processes, a proposal consistent with the embodied cognition framework in that it suggests that stimuli can automatically activate motor codes (e.g., Pezzulo et al., New Ideas in Psychology, 31(3), 270-290, 2013). To test this account, we reversed the stimulus-response mappings for one or both tasks so that some participants had to “do the opposite” of what they perceived. In these reversed conditions, stimuli resembled the environmental outcome of the alternative (incorrect) response. Nonetheless, reversed tasks were performed without costs even when paired with an unreversed task. This finding suggests that the separation of the central codes across tasks (e.g., Wickens, 1984) is more critical than the specific S-R relationships; dual-task costs can be avoided when the tasks engage distinct modality-based systems.

Dual-task performance

Embodied cognition

Cognitive Psychology

Modality effects

Psychology

Ideomotor compatibility

Details

Title: Subtitle: Do small dual-task costs reflect ideomotor compatibility or the absence of crosstalk?
Creators: Kimberly Halvorson - Department of Psychology Metropolitan State University 1450 Energy Park Drive St. Paul MN 55108-5218 USA
Eliot Hazeltine - Department of Psychology University of Iowa Iowa City IA USA
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.22(5), pp.1403-1409
Publisher: Springer US; New York
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-015-0813-8
PMID: 25754530
ISSN: 1069-9384
eISSN: 1531-5320
Language: English
Date published: 10/2015
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984070276702771

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