Some Remarks on Doing Two Things at Once.

摘要

Three experiments are reported that test the generality of attentional theories which postulate that all mental processes compete for a single limited mental resource. We call this general view of inter-task interference the 'resource competition' model. All three experiments made use of the secondary task methodology, in which subjects are required to perform two tasks simutaneously, but are instructed to give one task priority over the other. The resource competition model suggests that the secondary task methodology can be used to study individual differences. If subjects can indeed follow instructions concerning the priorities of the two tasks, then performance on the secondary task should be a measure of the 'spare capacity' associated with the primary task at a certain level of difficulty and should predict the subject's ability to perform the primary task at a greater level of difficulty.