Characterizing attentional resources.

Hirst, William; Kalmar, David A.

doi:10.1037/0096-3445.116.1.68

Cited by 182 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

122

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Theorists such as Kahneman (1973) argue that such interference stems from an overutilization of resources from a centralized pool. Others maintain that attending is impaired due to structural interference between the two modalities (e.g., Hirst & Kalmar, 1987). Some support for the latter idea comes from the cued recognition task of Experiment 2.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks

Boltz

2004

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks

Boltz

2004

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…In conclusion, a number of theories exist as to why older adults struggle with multitasking (8), including: multiple tasks increase task difficulty/complexity (41), resource capacity limitations (42), increased crosstalk conflict (43), and greater bottleneck-processing limitations (44). The present results offer yet another mechanism for the impact of multitasking on cognitive performance in older adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Deficit in switching between functional brain networks underlies the impact of multitasking on working memory in older adults

Clapp

Rubens²,

Sabharwal³

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

190

158

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Multitasking negatively influences the retention of information over brief periods of time. This impact of interference on working memory is exacerbated with normal aging. We used functional MRI to investigate the neural basis by which an interruption is more disruptive to working memory performance in older individuals. Younger and older adults engaged in delayed recognition tasks both with and without interruption by a secondary task. Behavioral analysis revealed that working memory performance was more impaired by interruptions in older compared with younger adults. Functional connectivity analyses showed that when interrupted, older adults disengaged from a memory maintenance network and reallocated attentional resources toward the interrupting stimulus in a manner consistent with younger adults. However, unlike younger individuals, older adults failed to both disengage from the interruption and reestablish functional connections associated with the disrupted memory network. These results suggest that multitasking leads to more significant working memory disruption in older adults because of an interruption recovery failure, manifest as a deficient ability to dynamically switch between functional brainnetworks.W orking memory (WM), the ability to store and manipulate information in the mind over brief periods of time, is critical for a wide variety of cognitive abilities and real life activities (1). It has been demonstrated that WM performance is negatively impacted by the presence of external stimuli that are outside the focus of our memory goals (2, 3). This interference occurs whether there is an attempt to ignore these stimuli (i.e., distractions), or attend to them as a component of a concurrent, secondary task (i.e., interruptions, or multitasking) (4). We recently showed that older adults experience a more negative impact by distraction on WM performance compared with younger adults, and an even greater impairment when multitasking (5). There is extensive literature indicating that older adults are highly susceptible to distraction and that this leads to impairment in performance (for review, see refs. 6 and 7). In terms of a greater impact of multitasking on WM in aging, this finding is consistent with the detrimental influence that multitasking has been shown to have on a wide range of activities in older individuals (8-10). Research directed at understanding the basis of age-related interference effects is becoming increasingly important, as older adults remain engaged in the work force later in life (11), which itself is evolving into a more demanding, high-interference environment (12).To explore the neural basis of age-related WM disruption by distractions, we previously conducted a series of experiments using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional MRI (fMRI) recordings. Functional MRI measures revealed that older individuals inappropriately direct excessive attention toward processing visual stimuli that are entirely irrelevant (i.e., distractions), and that this correlates with diminishe...

show abstract

“…After all, if concurrent processing of tasks (namely time-sharing or parallel processing) were possible, it presumably would require a surge of effort (Kahneman, 1973;ch. 2) that may incur some extra cost (Navon & Gopher, 1979, p. 229) or feel aversive (Navon, 1989a(Navon, , 1989b, it would depend heavily on practice (Hirst, Spelke, Reaves, Caharack, & Neisser, 1980;Logan, 1979Logan, , 1988Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977), it could produce motor or other sorts of conflict (Hirst & Kalmar, 1987;Logan & Schulkind, 2000;Meyer & Kieras, 1997b;Navon & Miller, 1987), and/or it would be susceptible to errors (Duncan, 1980). Serial processing might be a natural strategy for overcoming these problems (cf.…”

Section: Is a Single Bottleneck Needed To Explain Queuing Of Tasks?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This notion thus seems to fall, just like the Single-Resource Model does, in categories 3 or 6 in the list above (section ''What Actually is the Main Issue?''). Outcome conflict is sometimes equated with content confusability or task similarity (e.g., Pashler, 1994a), perhaps because some early studies (Hirst & Kalmar, 1987;Navon & Miller, 1987) elected to demonstrate outcome conflict by the effect of confusability. However, the definition ''output or side effect occasioned by the interfering event'' (Navon, 1985, p. 137) is clearly broad enough to allow for conflict between nonsimilar events or processes.…”

Section: Alternative Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Queuing or Sharing? A Critical Evaluation of the Single-Bottleneck Notion

Navon

Miller

2002

Cognitive Psychology

336

359

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The model of a single central bottleneck for human information processing is critically examined. Most evidence cited in support of the model has been observed within the overlapping tasks paradigm. It is shown here that most findings obtained within that paradigm and that were used to support the model are also consistent with a simple resource model. The most prominent findings are the millisecondfor-millisecond slope at the left of the RT2-SOA curve, the high RT1-RT2 correlation, the additivity of the effects on RT2 of SOA and of the difficulty of selecting R2, and the washout of the effect of S2 discriminability on RT2 in a dual-task condition. In addition, the asymmetry of the effects of the dual-task requirement on RT1 and RT2 can be accounted for by the resource model provided that it assumes uneven allocation of resources, which is quite reasonable in view of the task asymmetry inherent in the demand characteristics of the paradigm. The same is true for two other findings that appear to support the single-bottleneck model-that in the dual-task condition, the demand of the first task affects equally RT1 and RT2 and that its effect on RT1 is the same as the corresponding effect in the singletask condition. Furthermore, the single-bottleneck model is hard to reconcile with a negative slope at the left of the RT1-SOA curve or a positive slope at the left of the IRI-SOA curve, unless augmented by ancillary assumptions that are yet to be substantiated. Representative data were fit by each of the models using its optimal set of parameters. Both models achieved quite good degrees of fit. It is further argued that since the overlapping tasks paradigm is heavily biased in favor of a speedy reaction to the stimulus that appears first, it is nonoptimal for testing the central bottleneck model. Finally, the bottleneck model is examined in terms of other scientific criteria.

show abstract

Characterizing attentional resources.

Cited by 182 publications

References 22 publications

The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks

The cognitive processing of film and musical soundtracks

Deficit in switching between functional brain networks underlies the impact of multitasking on working memory in older adults

Queuing or Sharing? A Critical Evaluation of the Single-Bottleneck Notion

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About