Display Location of Verbal and Spatial Material: The Joint Effects of Task-Hemispheric Integrity and Processing Strategy.

摘要

In this experiment 10 subjects controlled a first or second order system while monitoring a visual channel for one or two 3-character alpha-numeric call numbers in a memory search task. In a compatible display configuration the tracking task was displayed to the left visual field and controlled by the left hand. The verbal task was performed on the right. Compatibility was achieved here because the spatial tracking display had direct access to the processing hemisphere, which also directly controls the manual response; a corresponding assignment guides the verbal task. In the incompatible configuration, the two tasks are reversed: tracking to the right, verbal memory to the left. The results of Experiment 1 indicated a strong main effect of compatibility for both tasks. This effect was consistent across all levels of difficulty of both tasks. In Experiment 2 only the most difficult tasks were performed in the two configurations and the emphasis between the two tasks was varied. Compatibility effects were again observed, and were enhanced when the verbal task was emphasized. These results are interpreted in terms of scanning strategies adopted by the subjects.