Abstract
Some studies have reported the influence of educational status on visual and motor tasks.The aim of this study was to compare the performance of adults with low (2.3±1.9 years of formal education) and high educational status (16.1±4.0 years) in a dual-task, composed of a visual and a motor task performed simultaneously.The visual task consisted of the presentation of two pictures that had to be verbally classified as equal or different. The motor task consisted of alternating steps from the floor to a stool.The tasks were assessed individually (simple-task) and associated (dual-task), and the performance in each condition was compared by ANOVAs. The low educational status group (LESG) committed more errors in the visual stimuli classification and performed a lower number of alternations of steps per second when compared to the high educational status group (HESG). During the dual-task performance, visual task errors increased and the number of alternations of steps per second decreased for both groups, in comparison with the single-task. However, the LESG was less accurate at classifying the stimuli during the dual-task condition than the HESG. Our findings suggest that having only a few years of formal education might decrease the ability to manage mental resources in dual-tasks.
Highlights
Activities of daily living require the ability to attend to concurrent tasks
The present study investigated the influence of educational status on the performance of a visual and a motor task performed individually and concurrently
In terms of the visual task performed alone, our premise was that the low educational status group (LESG) would have a poorer performance compared to the high educational status group (HESG)
Summary
Activities of daily living require the ability to attend to concurrent tasks. we are constantly trying to learn how to perform dualtasks, our capability to perform tasks in parallel is limited. The literature describes forms of negative interference between concurrent tasks (Brown & Bennett, 2002; Hazeltine, Ruthruff & Remington, 2006). This interference usually occurs when two or more tasks are associated with one another because they may be performed with less speed and less accuracy than when they are performed separately (Eversheim & Bock, 2001; Heralth, Torkel, Jeremy, Kathrin & Per, 2001). Dual-task interference may occur if the attentional capacity limits are exceeded (Bourke, Duncan & NimmoSmith, 1996). These limits are reduced due to aging (Bherer, Kramer, Peterson, Colcombe, Erickson & Becic, 2005; Lacour, Bernard-Damanze & Dumitrescu, 2008), brain damage
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