The Role of Practice in Dual-Task Performance: Toward Workload Modeling a Connectionist/Control Architecture

The literature on practice effects and transfer from single- to dual-task performance is briefly reviewed. The review suggests that single-task training produces limited transfer to dual-task performance. Past theoretical frameworks to explain multitask performance are reviewed. A connectionist/control architecture for skill acquisition is presented. The architecture involves neural-like units at the micro level of processing, with information transmitted between modules at the macro level. Simulations within the architecture exhibit five phases of skill acquisition. Dual-task interference and performance are predicted as a function of the phase of practice a skill has reached. Seven compensatory activities occur in the architecture during dual-task training that do not appear in single-task training, including (1) shedding and delaying tasks and preloading buffers, (2) letting go of high-workload strategies, (3) utilizing noncompeting resources, (4) multiplexing over time, (5) shortening transmissions. (6) converting interference from concurrent transmissions, and (7) chunking of transmissions. Future research issues suggested by the architecture are discussed.

[1]  G E BRIGGS,et al.  Effects of task complexity and task organization on the relative efficiency of part and whole training methods. , 1963, Journal of experimental psychology.

[2]  Robert S. Kennedy,et al.  Effects of Extended Practice on Dual-Task Tracking Performance , 1981 .

[3]  M. Mishkin,et al.  The anatomy of memory. , 1987, Scientific American.

[4]  C D Wickens,et al.  Codes and Modalities in Multiple Resources: A Success and a Qualification , 1988, Human factors.

[5]  Nancy S. Anderson,et al.  An Investigation of Varying Amounts of Component- Task Practice on Dual-Task Performance , 1980 .

[6]  William F. Brewer,et al.  Use of plan schemata in the recall and recognition of goal-directed actions. , 1983 .

[7]  D. Norman,et al.  Attention to Action: Willed and Automatic Control of Behavior Technical Report No. 8006. , 1980 .

[8]  E. Hunt,et al.  Unified Model of Attention and Problem Solving. , 1986 .

[9]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  The identification and transfer of timesharing skills , 1980 .

[10]  W. James,et al.  The Principles of Psychology. , 1983 .

[11]  J. A. McGeoch,et al.  The psychology of human learning, 2nd ed. , 1952 .

[12]  J. Deutsch.  Perception and Communication , 1958, Nature.

[13]  Daniel Gopher,et al.  Adaptive training of perceptual-motor skills: issues, results, and future directions , 1978 .

[14]  Thomas B. Sheridan,et al.  Monitoring Behavior and Supervisory Control , 1976 .

[15]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Using Rules and Task Division to Augment Connectionist Learning , 1988 .

[16]  A. D. Fisk,et al.  A methodological assessment and evaluation of dual-task paradigms , 1986 .

[17]  Neville Moray,et al.  Monitoring behavior and supervisory control , 1986 .

[18]  Paul S. Rosenbloom,et al.  Universal Subgoaling and Chunking , 1986 .

[19]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Changes in Performance in Workload with Training , 1986 .

[20]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Attention and Effort , 1973 .

[21]  E. Spelke,et al.  Dividing Attention Without Alternation or Automaticity , 1980 .

[22]  C D Wickens.  THE MULTIPLE RESOURCES MODEL OF HUMAN PERFORMANCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR DISPLAY DESIGN , 1984 .

[23]  Mark C. Detweiler,et al.  A Connectionist/Control Architecture for Working Memory , 1988 .

[24]  G Underwood.  Moray vs. the Rest: The Effects of Extended Shadowing Practice , 1974, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[25]  Raja Parasuraman,et al.  Varieties of attention , 1984 .

[26]  H. P. Bahrick,et al.  Time sharing as an index of automatization. , 1958, Journal of experimental psychology.

[27]  Diane L. Damos,et al.  Residual Attention as a Predictor of Pilot Performance , 1978 .

[28]  D. Allport,et al.  On the Division of Attention: A Disproof of the Single Channel Hypothesis , 1972, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[29]  W. Schneider.  Connectionism: Is it a paradigm shift for psychology? , 1987 .

[30]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. , 1977 .

[31]  A. D. Fisk,et al.  Category and word search: generalizing search principles to complex processing. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[32]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and Automatic Human Information Processing: 1. Detection, Search, and Attention. , 1977 .

[33]  B. Kerr,et al.  Processing demands during mental operations , 1973, Memory & cognition.

[34]  R. Sternbach,et al.  Consciousness and self-regulation: Advances in research Vol. 1, G.E. Schwartz and D. Shapiro (Eds.), Plenum Press, New York, 1976, xxii + 40- pp., Price : U.S. $ 22.74 , 1977, Pain.

[35]  Robert C. Haygood,et al.  The Use of Secondary Tasks in Adaptive Training , 1984 .

[36]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Parallel distributed processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 1: foundations , 1986 .

[37]  A. D. Fisk,et al.  Concurrent Automatic and Controlled Visual Search: Can Processing Occur Without Resource Cost? , 1982 .

[38]  A. D. Fisk,et al.  Degree of consistent training: Improvements in search performance and automatic process development , 1982, Perception & psychophysics.

[39]  S. Jay Samuels,et al.  Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading , 1974 .

[40]  James A. Anderson,et al.  Cognitive and psychological computation with neural models , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[41]  Whole-part problem. , 1931 .

[42]  W. Schneider,et al.  Automatic category search and its transfer. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[43]  M. S. Mayzner,et al.  Human information processing : tutorials in performance and cognition , 1975 .

[44]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Training High-Performance Skills: Fallacies and Guidelines , 1985 .

[45]  J. A. McGeoch.  The psychology of human learning , 1942 .

[46]  R. Shiffrin,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: I , 1977 .

[47]  D Gopher,et al.  Measures of Attention as Predictors of Flight Performance , 1976, Human factors.

[48]  Charles R. Kelley,et al.  What is Adaptive Training?1 , 1969 .

[49]  Leon M. Solomons,et al.  Normal motor automatism. , 1896 .

[50]  E. Spelke,et al.  Skills of divided attention , 1976, Cognition.

[51]  R. W. Pew,et al.  Human perceptual-motor performance , 1974 .

[52]  L. Kaufman,et al.  Handbook of perception and human performance , 1986 .

[53]  Gavan Lintern,et al.  Part-Task Training for Tracking and Manual Control , 1985 .

[54]  思凱.  Automatic Writing , 1894, British medical journal.

[55]  Diane L. Damos,et al.  A comparison of single- and dual-task measures to predict simulator performance of beginning student pilots , 1981 .

[56]  S. T. Klapp,et al.  Short-term memory does not involve the "working memory" of information processing: The demise of a common assumption , 1983 .