A Validation of the Spatial Variant of the Sternberg Memory Search Task: Search Rate, Response Hand, & Task Interference

摘要

A series of three experiments are reported that examine the spatial and verbal variants of the Sternberg Memory Search Task and their relation to dual task interference. The verbal task employs 25 letters of the alphabet as stimuli, the spatial task, 25 randomly positioned 5-dot matrices. These had been previously employed in investigations by Micalizzi and Wickens (spatial), Wickens and Derrick (verbal), and Wickens and Sandry (both). In experiment 1, the effect of memory set size (1, 2, and 4) on the slope of the Sternberg function of both stimulus types was compared. In experiment 2, a memory search task with each of the two stimulus sets was performed concurrently with a highly verbal task (short term memory of low imagery words) and a hypothesized spatial task (tracking). In experiment 3, the two search tasks were time-shared with a perceptual task in which subjects monitored an autopilot-controlled dynamic system for intermittent failures, (discrete changes in the transfer function).