Abstract
The goal of this study was to assess the impact of individual neuropsychological differences on the ability to share attention between concurrent tasks. Participants (n = 20) were trained on six single task practice sessions and dual-task was assessed with reaction time performance on a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. Neuropsychological test scores were also acquired. Furthermore, one of the known variables that can influence performances on neuropsychological tests is gender, which was added as a potential predictor. Results show that the small PRP group was associated with better performances in processing speed, inhibition, flexibility and working memory on neuropsychological tests. Gender also had an impact on the PRP, males having a lower PRP than females. A multiple regression was performed to determine which variables explained the most PRP duration, which showed that 49.1% of the variance of the PRP length could be explained by gender, reaction times of the PRP practice trials at the sixth session, the denomination and flexibility conditions of the Modified Stroop Task as well as results on the Symbol Search Test. Gender was the variable that explained the PRP variance the most (23%). Processing speed also seemed to be a great determinant of the PRP as well as the ability to alternate between task-sets as assessed by the Flexibility condition of the Modified Stroop Task. Thus, this study reveals that good performances on certain neuropsychological tests could predict one’s ease to manage two tasks simultaneously with a higher chance for males to perform better.
Highlights
As society emphasizes productivity more and more, the ability to perform two things at the same time has become a major concern for both public and scientific interest
The aim of the present study was to assess whether performances on neuropsychological tests, those tapping executive functioning, are related to individual differences in perfect time sharing following an extensive training with a Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm
PRP paradigm results The PRP was calculated by subtracting the mean amount of time to answer task 2 for the long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA ; i.e., 1000 ms) to the mean response time to task 2 for the short SOA (i.e., 15 ms) in the last session
Summary
As society emphasizes productivity more and more, the ability to perform two things at the same time has become a major concern for both public and scientific interest. Ruthruff et al (2006) found that, after extensive training on the second task, some persons are capable of perfect time sharing between tasks For those participants, the execution of the second task does not suffer from reducing the delay between the two tasks. Ruthruff et al (2006) suggested that these participants have the ability to bypass the central bottleneck of information processing, a common explanation for the classical PRP effect. These results are consistent with previous findings. Evidences reported so far suggest that extensive practice can improve the ability to perform two independent tasks at the same time, but that strong individual differences exist in the ability to share attention between tasks even after substantial practice
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