Dual-task performance using degraded speech in a sentence-verification task

Abstract

The results of a preliminary study on the effects of reduced speech intelligibility on dual-task performance are reported. The speech task was a sentence-verification task, and speech degradation was accomplished using a narrowband digital voice-transmission system operating with and without random bit errors. The second task was a visual picture-sorting task. There was a dualtask decrement on the sorting task and, in addition, there was a further decrease in sorts per minute as the speech was increasingly degraded. Reaction time for the speech task increased with the concurrent sorting task, but the dual-task condition did not affect speech-task error rates.