Larger between-task crosstalk in children than in adults: Behavioral results from the backward crosstalk paradigm and a diffusion model analysis.

In dual-task settings, one can find influences from Task 2 processing even on Task 1 performance, an effect referred to as the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). The size of the BCE has been taken as an index of how well Task 1 processing can be shielded against concurrently ongoing Task 2 processes. In the current study, we compared the size of the BCE between adults and a group of 5- and 6-year-old children. First, the BCE turned out to be larger in children than in adults. Second, both groups exhibited a comparable adjustment of behavior in response to just experienced conflict; in both groups, the BCE was smaller following conflict trials than following no-conflict trials. Third, a diffusion model analysis suggests that the source for the BCE is different in adults than in children. In particular, not parallel Task 2 response activation appears to be the source of the BCE in children. Rather, non-decisional processes appear to be responsible for the BCE in this age group. Thus, this study shows that (a) 5- and 6-year-old children can perform dual-tasks, but (b) they show slightly larger signs of between-task crosstalk, and (c) the exact reasons for this appear to be different from those responsible in adults.

[1]  Aishah Bakhtiar,et al.  Growing up multitasking: The costs and benefits for cognitive development , 2015 .

[2]  Elger L. Abrahamse,et al.  The Congruency Sequence Effect 3.0: A Critical Test of Conflict Adaptation , 2014, PloS one.

[3]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  Individual differences in components of reaction time distributions and their relations to working memory and intelligence. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[4]  Andrea M Philipp,et al.  Control and interference in task switching--a review. , 2010, Psychological bulletin.

[5]  T. Salthouse,et al.  Divided attention abilities in young and old adults. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[6]  S. Monsell.  Task switching , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[7]  Wilfried Kunde,et al.  Journal of Experimental Psychology : Learning , Memory , and Cognition Exceptions to the PRP Effect ? A Comparison of Prepared and Unconditioned Reflexes , 2014 .

[8]  K. R. Ridderinkhof,et al.  Switching between spatial stimulus-response mappings: a developmental study of cognitive flexibility. , 2004, Developmental science.

[9]  Andreas Voss,et al.  Cognitive processes in associative and categorical priming: a diffusion model analysis. , 2013, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[10]  Rico Fischer,et al.  Better not to deal with two tasks at the same time when stressed? Acute psychosocial stress reduces task shielding in dual-task performance , 2012, Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.

[11]  E. Crone,et al.  Cognitive Flexibility in Childhood and Adolescence , 2014 .

[12]  D. Amso,et al.  Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching , 2006, Neuropsychologia.

[13]  Grice Gr,et al.  Stimulus intensity and response evocation. , 1968 .

[14]  Jeremy W. Grabbe,et al.  Cross-Task Compatibility and Age-Related Dual-Task Performance , 2012, Experimental aging research.

[15]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Backward response-level crosstalk in the psychological refractory period paradigm. , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[16]  Bernhard Hommel,et al.  Control of stimulus-response translation in dual-task performance , 2002, Psychological research.

[17]  M. Schmitter-Edgecombe,et al.  Costs of a predictable switch between simple cognitive tasks following severe closed-head injury. , 2006, Neuropsychology.

[18]  K. R. Ridderinkhof,et al.  Switching between tasks and responses: a developmental study. , 2006, Developmental science.

[19]  R W Proctor,et al.  Multiple spatial correspondence effects on dual-task performance. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  Andreas Voss,et al.  Fast-dm: A free program for efficient diffusion model analysis , 2007, Behavior research methods.

[21]  Lynn Huestegge,et al.  Effects of a no-go Task 2 on Task 1 performance in dual - tasking: From benefits to costs , 2017, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[22]  R. D. Gordon,et al.  Executive control of visual attention in dual-task situations. , 2001, Psychological review.

[23]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  Analogous mechanisms of selection and updating in declarative and procedural working memory: Experiments and a computational model , 2013, Cognitive Psychology.

[24]  Rico Fischer,et al.  Journal of Experimental Psychology : Learning , Memory , and Cognition Context-Sensitive Adjustment of Cognitive Control in Dual-Task Performance , 2013 .

[25]  H. Pashler.  Dual-task interference in simple tasks: data and theory. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[26]  Torsten Schubert,et al.  Response activation in overlapping tasks and the response-selection bottleneck. , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[27]  S. Christ,et al.  Inhibitory control across the life span. , 2001, Developmental neuropsychology.

[28]  R. Guttentag,et al.  Age differences in dual-task performance: Procedures, assumptions, and results☆ , 1989 .

[29]  U. Lindenberger,et al.  Age differences in executive functioning across the lifespan: the role of verbalization in task preparation. , 2004, Acta psychologica.

[30]  Mariëtte Huizinga,et al.  A diffusion model analysis of developmental changes in children's task switching. , 2014, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[31]  Markus Janczyk,et al.  Sequential modulation of backward crosstalk and task-shielding in dual-tasking. , 2016, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[32]  N. Meiran.  Reconfiguration of processing mode prior to task performance. , 1996 .

[33]  R. Proctor,et al.  Stimulus-response compatibility and psychological refractory period effects: Implications for response selection , 2002, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[34]  U. Mayr.  Age differences in the selection of mental sets: the role of inhibition, stimulus ambiguity, and response-set overlap. , 2001, Psychology and aging.

[35]  G. Deák,et al.  Children's Task-Switching Efficiency: Missing Our Cue? , 2015 .

[36]  Michael J. Larson,et al.  Cognitive Control and Conflict Adaptation Similarities in Children and Adults , 2012, Developmental neuropsychology.

[37]  J. Kray,et al.  Verbal self-instructions in task switching: a compensatory tool for action-control deficits in childhood and old age? , 2008, Developmental science.

[38]  Thea Ionescu,et al.  Exploring the nature of cognitive flexibility. , 2012 .

[39]  J Bruce Morton,et al.  Flankers facilitate 3-year-olds' performance in a card-sorting task. , 2008, Developmental psychology.

[40]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A Theory of Memory Retrieval. , 1978 .

[41]  Wilfried Kunde,et al.  Who is talking in backward crosstalk? Disentangling response- from goal-conflict in dual-task performance , 2014, Cognition.

[42]  B. Hommel.  Automatic stimulus-response translation in dual-task performance. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[43]  U. Mayr.  Age differences in the selection of mental sets: the role of inhibition, stimulus ambiguity, and response-set overlap. , 2001, Psychology and aging.

[44]  Scott Watter,et al.  Information continuity across the response selection bottleneck: Early parallel Task 2 response activation contributes to overt Task 2 performance , 2013, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.

[45]  Markus Janczyk,et al.  Confidence intervals for two sample means: Calculation, interpretation, and a few simple rules , 2013, Advances in cognitive psychology.

[46]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Backward crosstalk effects in psychological refractory period paradigms: effects of second-task response types on first-task response latencies , 2006, Psychological research.

[47]  Bernhard Hommel,et al.  Mood states determine the degree of task shielding in dual-task performance , 2013, Cognition & emotion.

[48]  Andreas Voss,et al.  Decomposing task-switching costs with the diffusion model. , 2012, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[49]  D. Alan Allport,et al.  SHIFTING INTENTIONAL SET - EXPLORING THE DYNAMIC CONTROL OF TASKS , 1994 .

[50]  D. Balota,et al.  Individual differences in information-processing rate and amount: implications for group differences in response latency. , 1999, Psychological bulletin.

[51]  Rolf Ulrich,et al.  Automatic and controlled stimulus processing in conflict tasks: Superimposed diffusion processes and delta functions , 2015, Cognitive Psychology.

[52]  A. Voss,et al.  Model Complexity in Diffusion Modeling: Benefits of Making the Model More Parsimonious , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[53]  E. Neumann,et al.  Avoiding the potential pitfalls of using negative priming tasks in developmental studies: assessing inhibitory control in children, adolescents, and adults. , 2009, Developmental psychology.

[54]  T. Egner.  Congruency sequence effects and cognitive control , 2007, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[55]  Philip L. Smith,et al.  A comparison of sequential sampling models for two-choice reaction time. , 2004, Psychological review.

[56]  Markus Janczyk,et al.  Parallel dual-task processing and task-shielding in older and younger adults: Behavioral and diffusion model results , 2018, Experimental aging research.

[57]  W. Surwillo,et al.  Reaction time and the psychological refractory period in children and adults. , 1976, Developmental psychobiology.

[58]  Scott Watter,et al.  PRP training shows Task1 response selection is the locus of the backward response compatibility effect , 2015, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[59]  K. Konrad,et al.  Investigating task inhibition in children versus adults: A diffusion model analysis. , 2017, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[60]  E. Donchin,et al.  Optimizing the use of information: strategic control of activation of responses. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[61]  Andreas Voss,et al.  Assessing cognitive processes with diffusion model analyses: a tutorial based on fast-dm-30 , 2015, Front. Psychol..

[62]  Sara B. Festini,et al.  Backward compatibility effects in younger and older adults , 2016, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[63]  A. Kramer,et al.  Changes in executive control across the life span: examination of task-switching performance. , 2001, Developmental psychology.

[64]  Mike Anderson,et al.  Effect of age on dual-task performance in children and adults , 2011, Memory & cognition.

[65]  B. Burns,et al.  Developmental changes in children's abilities to share and allocate attention in a dual task. , 2000, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[66]  Bernhard Hommel,et al.  Deep thinking increases task-set shielding and reduces shifting flexibility in dual-task performance , 2012, Cognition.

[67]  Clarissa A. Thompson,et al.  Children are not like older adults: a diffusion model analysis of developmental changes in speeded responses. , 2012, Child development.

[68]  Markus Janczyk,et al.  Identifying the Locus of Compatibility-Based Backward Crosstalk: Evidence From an Extended PRP Paradigm , 2018, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.