Revealing mechanisms underlying backward crosstalk effects in multitasking

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Markus Janczyk; Professor Dr. Rolf Ulrich
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406539378

Multitasking, that is, doing several tasks at the same time, usually comes with performance costs in at least one of the tasks. These costs are often explained with bottlenecks in human information processing. Theoretically revealing are thus phenomena showing that characteristics of a secondary task already effect performance in the primary task, so-called backward crosstalk effects (BCEs). Based on prior work we distinguish two types of BCEs: One variant is based on compatibility-relations between both tasks, and results from automatic response activation in the secondary task that interacts with response selection in the first task. The second variant results from generalizing inhibitory processes in case of no-go response in task 2 that slows down response execution in the first task. The main purposes of this project are (a) experimental tests of this distinction and (b) the development of mathematical models of these backward crosstalk effects.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1772: Human performance under multiple cognitive task requirements: From basic mechanisms to optimized task scheduling