Abstract
The ability to perform multiple tasks concurrently is an ever-increasing requirement in our information-rich world. Despite this, multitasking typically compromises performance due to the processing limitations associated with cognitive control and decision-making. While intensive dual-task training is known to improve multitasking performance, only limited evidence suggests that training-related performance benefits can transfer to untrained tasks that share overlapping processes. In the real world, however, coordinating and selecting several responses within close temporal proximity will often occur in high-interference environments. Over the last decade, there have been notable reports that training on video action games that require dynamic multitasking in a demanding environment can lead to transfer effects on aspects of cognition such as attention and working memory. Here, we asked whether continuous and dynamic multitasking training extends benefits to tasks that are theoretically related to the trained tasks. To examine this issue, we asked a group of participants to train on a combined continuous visuomotor tracking task and a perceptual discrimination task for six sessions, while an active control group practiced the component tasks in isolation. A battery of tests measuring response selection, response inhibition, and spatial attention was administered before and immediately after training to investigate transfer. Multitasking training resulted in substantial, task-specific gains in dual-task ability, but there was no evidence that these benefits generalized to other action control tasks. The findings suggest that training on a combined visuomotor tracking and discrimination task results in task-specific benefits but provides no additional value for untrained action selection tasks.
Highlights
The modern, information-rich world demands that we often have to undertake multiple tasks concurrently
The results showed that multitasking To investigate the effects of training on multitasking performance, ability improved after the two tasks had been trained in we first explored performance before training on the sample as a npj Science of Learning (2017) 14
The overall mean main effect of session (F(1,37) = 4.46, p = .042, η2P = .108), indicataccuracy for the single discrimination task and single tracking task ing that multitasking performance improved significantly from was 83% and 80%, respectively, demonstrating that the adaptive pre-training to post-training
Summary
The modern, information-rich world demands that we often have to undertake multiple tasks concurrently. Evidence suggests that dual-task costs can be reduced with practice/training, with participants consistently displaying experience-related improvements on the task itself.[3,7,8,9,10,11] Neuroimaging studies investigating the neural underpinnings associated with reduced multitasking costs have found that dual-task training decreases cortical activity in sub-regions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior lateral prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and parietal cortex,[2,12,13] a network of areas that is frequently recruited in a wide range of tasks that require the executive control of action.[14,15,16,17] these studies offer intriguing insights into the potentials of dual-task training, the exact mechanisms that contribute to training-related behavioral and neural adaptation effects are currently not fully understood Several explanations for these effects have been proposed: (1) capacity-limited response selection processes are shortened in the single component tasks;[2,18,19] (2) the repeated exposure to consistent stimulus-response mappings in each component task leads to the development of memory traces that enable the direct associations between stimuli and responses;[18,20,21,22] and (3) dualtask performance leads to the acquisition of improved attentional control skills in coordinating two independent tasks concurrently.[8,10,23] dual-task performance is improved by reducing the conflict for limited central resources. The proposed mechanisms are in line with a recent large-scale neuroimaging study by Garner and Dux,[12] which suggests that training increases the separation of the neural representations of the constituent tasks, indicating that more fine-tuned task representations contribute to Received: 13 January 2017 Revised: 2 October 2017 Accepted: 27 October 2017
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