SPP 1772:  Human performance under multiple cognitive task requirements: From basic mechanisms to optimized task scheduling

This Project aims to bring together different lines of research on human performance under such multiple cognitive task requirements (i.e. multitasking) in order to provide a new integrative theoretical framework to account for this fundamental aspect of human behaviour.Therefore, contributions of cognitive psychology and movement science constitute the core disciplines. Of course, other disciplines, such as cognitive neuroscience, that can help to improve our understanding of cognitive and performance aspects of multitasking may provide important contributions to the work programme. This combined effort allows the Priority Programme to provide an integrated framework that brings together the issues of structure, flexibility, and plasticity in human multitasking. Specifically, this programme aims at generating a scientific matrix that consists of an array of research topics clustered in the following three broad areas. - First, it will provide a new, integrative theoretical framework that reconciles the structural perspective of immutable processing bottlenecks with the more flexible cognitive-control perspective. - Second, it will re-examine a flexible processing resources metaphor by referring both to the structural perspective in terms of modality-specific capacities and the flexibility perspective in terms of task requirements, motivational, and emotional modulation. - Third, it will assess the plasticity of human cognition and motor behaviour with respect to action optimisation in multiple task situations by focussing on training schedules and the resulting learning processes.In sum, the present programme is aimed at addressing a new research perspective by integrating existing knowledge on a fundamental aspect of human behaviour (i.e. "Multitasking") across different theoretical perspectives and scientific disciplines. This basic research can also contribute to research in more applied contexts, which require high performance in multitasking.

DFG Programme Priority Programmes

International Connection New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA

• Action selection and effect orienting in a multitasking environment (Applicant Lukas, Sarah )
• Causes and consequences of errors in dual-tasking (Applicant Steinhauser, Marco )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Koch, Iring )
• Differential behavioral and neural effects of physical and mental fatigue on modality-specific task interference in cognitive-postural dual-task situations in young and old adults (Applicants Granacher, Ph.D., Urs ;  Heinzel, Stephan ;  Rapp, Michael ;  Stelzel, Christine )
• Dynamic Conflict Management: Using performance monitoring to guide stable adjustment in task performance and flexible task selection in self-organized multitasking environments. (Applicant Kiesel, Andrea )
• Embodied cognition in multitasking: Stimulus-hand proximity and cognitive control in dual-task performance (Applicants Fischer, Rico ;  Liepelt, Roman )
• How much cognition is in action? Using dual-tasks to explore the involvement of cognitive processes in action planning, programming and motor learning. (Applicant Schenk, Thomas )
• Inter-individual Differences in Multitasking: Prioritisation and Conceptualisation as Determinants of Efficient Multitasking (Applicants Künzell, Stefan ;  Raab, Markus )
• Investigating task order control in dual-task situations: The influence of instruction, task complexity, and practice (Applicant Schubert, Torsten )
• Maintenance and shifting of task-specific sets of stimulus selection in neurologically normal persons and ADHD patients (Applicants Gawrilow, Caterina ;  Jacobsen, Thomas )
• Modality-specific crosstalk in multitasking: Evidence from modality compatibility in task switching (Applicant Koch, Iring )
• Motor-cognitive dual task performance: a multidimensional approach (Applicant Bublak, Peter )
• Multi-tasking in movement sequence learning - the role of the control mode, coding and the sequence representation (Applicant Panzer, Stefan )
• Plasticity of Task Switching in Childhood: Mechanisms and Sequential Progression (Applicant Fandakova, Yana )
• Prediction-based mechanisms of separation of representations in sequential actions in multitasking (Applicants Gaschler, Robert ;  Haider, Hilde )
• Revealing mechanisms underlying backward crosstalk effects in multitasking (Applicants Janczyk, Markus ;  Ulrich, Rolf )
• Self-organized versus externally controlled task scheduling when facing multiple cognitive task requirements (Applicant Kiesel, Andrea )
• Simultaneous learning of multiple sensorimotor transformations (Applicant Hegele, Mathias )
• Task organization in multitasking: Determinants and characteristics of individual preferences for serial versus overlapping task processing and different strategies of response organization (Applicant Manzey, Dietrich )
• Task-specific and task-unspecific long term effects of cognitive-motormultitask training (Applicant Müller, Hermann )
• The influence of sequentially changing reward prospect on cognitive flexibility during (voluntary) task switching (Applicant Dreisbach, Gesine )
• The role of effect monitoring for dual-task performance (Applicant Kunde, Wilfried )
• The role of inhibition in human multitasking performance (Applicant Schuch, Stefanie )
• Time-based expectancy in multitasking: From cognitive psychology to movement science (Applicant Thomaschke, Roland )
• Training-induced plasticity of multitasking in everyday-like motor behavior (Applicants Bock, Otmar ;  Voelcker-Rehage, Ph.D., Claudia )
• Training-induced plasticity of multitasking in everyday-like motor behavior (Applicant Voelcker-Rehage, Ph.D., Claudia )
• Unraveling crosstalk from lower-level motor coordination to higher-levels in the cognitive-behavioral hierarchy (Applicants Cañal Bruland, Rouwen ;  Herbort, Oliver )

Spokesperson Professor Dr. Iring Koch