Dual tasking typically comes with performance costs in at least 1 of the 2 tasks relative to their performance as single tasks. In addition, compatibility relations between stimuli and responses can affect task performance. We here focus on the (response- related) backward crosstalk effect (BCE): Response times in Task 1 are shorter if the responses in Task 1 and 2 share compatible rather than incompatible spatial features. Interestingly, the BCE shows a sequential modulation: It is larger after compatible Trials N - 1 than after incompatible Trials N - 1, although the underlying reasons remain unclear. We report 2 experiments. Whereas Experiment 1 replicated the sequential modulation, Experiment 2 did not when effector combinations changed from trial to trial. These results suggest that sequential modulations of the BCE do not occur when the context of a trial changes to a sufficient degree. Additional results from applying a diffusion model attribute the sequential modulation to less Task 2 response activation after incompatible Trials N - 1. This result offers insights into the mechanisms underlying task shielding in dual tasking.
Automation is pervasive, and humans often collaborate with it to perform various tasks. With technological advancements, it has become increasingly important to understand the characteristics of complex teams composed of multiple humans and multiple agents. In this study, we examined various team- level metrics in multioperator, multiagent teams, including trust, communication, and task completion time (TCT). We conducted a human subjects experiment with 30 teams, each consisting of 2 human and 2 agent players, performing collaborative blockmoving tasks. Each team completed 10 trials under 3 agent reliability pairing conditions: perfect (both agents had 100% reliability), mixed (1 agent had 100%, the other 50%), and imperfect (both agents had 50% reliability). Humans searched for target- colored blocks and issued commands to the agents, which followed predetermined logic to move the blocks to the drop zone. Participants' trust ratings for each teammate and for the team were collected after each trial. From the experimental data, we quantified several team metrics: team- level trust in each referent (each teammate and the team), divergence of trust in each referent, team communication frequency, commands per block delivery, divergence of team communication, and TCT. We evaluated the effect of agent reliability pairing on each of these metrics and explored the associations between them. The results indicate strong interdependence: Shorter TCT is associated with higher team- level trust in team, greater agreement in trust ratings, and more effective, convergent communication patterns shared by the humans. This study offers important guidelines for evaluating human-agent teams at a higher, team- level perspective.
We possess few laws of behavior. In experimental psychology, the ones we do have largely reflect some form of systematic growth in variation as the mean of a percept or a response grows commensurately. These linear, or often log- linear relationships provide us with important insights. Yet fewer still are behavioral laws that take more curvilinear forms in Cartesian coordinate space. The present work concerns perhaps the most famous of the latter: the inverted- U relationship. Often called the Yerkes-Dodson law, after its supposed originators, it is arguably one of the most famous psychological principles. What of its origins and the solidity of the foundations on which it is grounded, and thus its reliability and subsequent applicability? The present work examines, explores, elucidates, and explains this foundation and illustrates some of the many assumptions and flaws involved in its original promulgation and in some subsequent interpretations, extrapolations, and adoptions. Where, how, and why these associated shortcomings and shortfalls were ignored, overlooked, or blandly accepted leads us to an understanding as to how naive beliefs about behavior populate the psychological world and remain embedded in the very fabric of psychological theory. Notwithstanding these observations, collectively we persist in our belief that humans do poorly at the extremes of overload or underload and peak in our performance at some intermediary level of stress. Why this belief remains the case is the pith of the present work and illustrates how intuition can readily trump factual information in the perception of reality.
Observations that people process nominally task- irrelevant information are commonly taken to demonstrate automaticity, an inability to avoid involuntary processing. However, it has been argued that this interpretation rests on an overly narrow view of people's active goals, which are not restricted to the goal reflecting the current task but also comprise other temporary and chronic goals. This suggests that nominally task- irrelevant stimuli are processed because they satisfy other concurrently active goals, such as curiosity: the chronic drive to reduce uncertainty. We tested this possibility in two experiments by comparing standard flanker and Simon tasks with otherwise identical task versions in which the irrelevant stimuli were perfectly predictable. The compatibility effects produced by the irrelevant stimuli were reduced by 50% or more. A third experiment did or did not arouse curiosity in a flanker task by blurring the flankers in some (not analyzed) trials. As predicted, the flanker compatibility effect was increased in the group with occasionally blurred flankers. Taken altogether, these findings suggest that nominally task-irrelevant stimuli are processed not because their processing cannot be prevented but because processing them satisfies curiosity and thus meets a chronic goal of perceivers/actors.
In 2-choice task-switching paradigms, repeating the previous response is beneficial when the task repeats but leads to performance costs when the task switches. Competing accounts explain such response repetition (RR) costs in different ways. Among these, some accounts postulate a signaling mechanism such that changing the task signals the cognitive system to change the response. With 2 response alternatives, a task switch signals the lone alternative response, yielding RR costs when the previous response should instead be repeated. With 3 response alternatives, a task switch promotes a bias to switch responses but does not signal which of the 2 alternative responses should be made. Therefore, it should be associated with reduced RR costs. To investigate this hypothesis, we manipulated the number of response alternatives in a cued task-switching paradigm, with 1 session affording 2 response alternatives and another affording 3. This manipulation did not influence RR costs in the reaction time measures. However, it did influence RR costs in mean error rates, which were smaller with 3 (vs. 2) response alternatives. Because only a signaling mechanism should yield this pattern, the latter finding suggests that signaling contributes to response repetition costs. We discuss this finding in light of other empirical results, suggesting that performance improves when different elements of a task require the same transition (e.g., a repetition) compared with a different transition.
The spatial-musical association of response code (SMARC) effect refers to better performance when low- pitch tones are mapped to lower/left response locations and high- pitch tones to upper/right response locations than vice versa. The SMARC effect is robust when response locations vary along the vertical dimension, but it occurs in more limited situations when responses vary along the horizontal dimension. The current study was designed to investigate two factors that have been previously shown to influence the horizontal SMARC effect, tone laterality and musical training, when properties of the tones were task irrelevant. Experiments 1 and 2 found that only musicians showed a robust horizontal SMARC effect when tones were presented binaurally, but both musicians and nonmusicians showed the effect when tones were presented monaurally in all trials. The horizontal SMARC effect was eliminated among nonmusicians when the monaural tone's lateral information was diluted by intermixing of monaural and binaural trials. Experiment 3 showed that 600 trials of practice with a compatible mapping of low pitch to left location and high pitch to right location was sufficient to elicit the horizontal SMARC effect in a transfer session among nonmusicians. Together, the results of the present study confirmed that musicians directly associate pitch height with left-right locations on the horizontal dimension, but for nonmusicians this association is not automatic. For nonmusicians, a horizontal reference frame provided via tone laterality or extensive training to associate pitch with left-right responses is needed for the horizontal SMARC effect to emerge.
Crossmodal interactions are common in tasks with information from multiple sensory modalities, and visual dominance often arises with incongruent sensory information. Visual dominance tends to be strong in spatial tasks with physical-spatial stimuli (e.g., stimuli in left and right locations), such that conflicting visual-spatial information impairs responses to auditory-spatial stimuli, but conflicting auditory-spatial information has less impact on visual-spatial processing. Strikingly, this pattern does not occur with verbal-spatial stimuli (e.g., the words "LEFT" and "RIGHT" as stimuli). Three experiments were conducted to examine the occurrence and underlying basis of this distinction. Participants were presented with either verbal-spatial or physical-spatial stimuli, simultaneously in the visual and auditory modalities, and were to selectively attend and respond to the spatial information in the cued modality. The distinct crossmodal congruence patterns for physical-spatial and verbal-spatial stimuli were found when the stimulus sets were blocked (Experiment 1) and when they were intermixed (Experiment 2). In addition, making verbal-spatial processing more frequent amplified the modality-congruence interaction for physical-spatial stimuli (Experiment 3). The consistent finding of the modality-congruence interaction showing visual dominance for physical-spatial stimuli but not for verbal-spatial stimuli under varying attentional conditions suggests that the effect is driven by the particular spatial sets based on their sensory properties rather than by attentional mechanisms.
A letter detection task, in which readers mark target letters in prose passages, has revealed the missing letter effect, in which letter detection accuracy is especially low on frequent function words. Healy et al. (2023) explored whether the missing letter effect is due to lexical factors or to semantic factors. In a passage including unrelated sentences that were either intact or randomly rearranged, test words differed in word frequency but were surrounded by the exact same words in each passage type. There was an effect of word frequency on letter detection accuracy but no effect of passage type, thereby implicating lexical factors in the missing letter effect. In the present study, function words varying in word frequency occurred in two prose passages, with some test words in each passage correctly spelled and others misspelled. Global semantic context was also manipulated by providing the passage theme either before or after reading the passage. Both word frequency and word spelling affected the magnitude of the missing letter effect. The location of the passage theme did not affect letter detection errors, although it did affect comprehension ratings. The results provide further evidence for the influence of lexical factors, but not of global semantic context, on the missing letter effect.
Although gaze direction conveys spatial information, its spatial coding properties remain unexplored. This study investigated distinct natures of spatial codes for each axis of gaze direction by examining the cross- task congruency sequence effect (CSE) and the time courses of the Simon effect. Participants performed horizontal and vertical Simon tasks alternatively in a trial- by- trial manner, using gaze direction and another spatial mode, respectively. Experiments 1a and 1b examined whether spatial codes for gaze direction vary by axis. Subsequent experiments examined whether horizontal and vertical gaze directions shared spatial codes with physical location (Experiment 2a and 2b), arrows (Experiment 3), and location words (Experiment 4a and 4b). The findings revealed that horizontal and vertical gaze directions exclusively shared spatial codes with different spatial modes. For the horizontal gaze- based Simon task, a cross- task CSE was found with the vertical arrow- based Simon task but not with the vertical gaze- based or vertical word- based Simon tasks. A unidirectional CSE was found from the vertical location- based Simon effect to the horizontal gaze- based Simon effect. In contrast, the vertical gaze- based Simon task showed a cross- task CSE only with the vertical word- based Simon task. Moreover, the gaze- based Simon effects and other modes of Simon effects revealed different patterns of time courses. Different shapes of delta functions reflected differences in the speed of activation and dissipation of spatial codes in the early stages of response processing but did not indicate qualitative differences in their spatial codes. These results suggest that horizontal and vertical gaze directions encode spatial information via different attributes.
Tactile stimulus-response (S- R) compatibility effects have been explained in 3 different frame of reference accounts: internal, external, or remapping. However, it remains unclear which frame of reference contributes to these effects. The present study used various S- R compatibility paradigms to investigate the reference frames used to encode tactile stimuli and facilitate response selection. Experiment 1 validated a novel apparatus by obtaining a standard S- R compatibility effect in an uncrossed- hands condition (hands in their corresponding lateral spatial location) and demonstrating a reversed S- R compatibility effect in a crossed- hands condition (hands in their noncorresponding spatial location). Experiment 2 examined whether stimulus frequency carried spatial associations by having participants respond to low- and high- frequency vibrotactile stimuli with left or right responses. No spatial association was found, confirming that frequency served as a nonspatial, task- relevant dimension suitable for use in a tactile Simon task. Experiment 3 compared the role of internal and external frames in a tactile Simon task. In the tactile Simon task, participants responded to stimulus frequency with left or right responses in both uncrossed- and crossed- hands conditions. A typical Simon effect emerged in the uncrossed- hands condition but disappeared when hands were crossed, suggesting that effector identity influenced performance. These findings indicate that both internal and external reference frames contribute to the tactile Simon effect. Overall, the results demonstrate that multiple reference frames can be used to process vibrotactile information for response selection and offer important implications for the design of vibrotactile warnings in human-automation systems.
Task-irrelevant features are processed even when people are fully aware of their undesired effects on task performance. This fact is exemplified by several types of interference effects in choice-reaction tasks, such as Stroop interference and the Simon effect. The observations are typically attributed to inextricable consequences of automatic cognitive processes involved in performing these tasks. However, evidence has accumulated suggesting that processes underlying these effects depend on one’s intention to perform particular tasks, rather than being strictly automatic. Thus, there exists a paradox: the interference from task-irrelevant features presumes processes that are under intentional control. The present review attempts to resolve this paradox. I propose an integrated view of attentional control, Action Field Theory, which formulates principles that account for a range of phenomena concerning automatic control of human behavior.
Reviews ‘Negotiation: The game has changed’ by Max Bazerman (2025), Princeton University Press. Notes the two central ideas of [1] negotiators missing many opportunities to "enlarge the pie;" thus misconstruing negotiation as a winner-loser game, and [2] a key psychological limitation, namely faulty or atrophied perspective-taking. The review highlights the tension - partially recognized by Bazerman - between main-effect seeking science, and the complex art of the seasoned practitioner.
People can create their own development by setting and pursuing goals. Whether people represent these goals in terms of the means (process focus) or the ends (outcome focus) is a concept known as goal focus. Past research frames goal focus as a tendency that shifts across age, with younger adults focusing on outcomes and older adults focusing on processes, but a process focus is considered more beneficial for goal- related results. However, evidence on goal focus shifting across age is mixed. This article explores whether goal focus remains consistent across goals and whether a process or outcome focus is associated with more positive goal- related outcomes. We hypothesized people would adopt an outcome focus across goals (H1), but a process focus would be more strongly related to performance (H2) and motivational beliefs (H3). Three studies tested these hypotheses. Study 1 (N = 195 adolescents) assessed goal focus and performance. Study 2 (N = 162 university students) assessed academic and a leisure goal focus and motivational beliefs. Study 3 (N = 143 university students) assessed academic goal focus and motivational beliefs. H1 and H2 were supported: Participants reported a higher outcome focus across tasks (except in a leisure goal), but a process focus was related to higher performance. H3 was largely supported: A process focus was a stronger and more consistent predictor of motivational beliefs than outcome focus. Among other implications, we conclude that people adopt an outcome focus more often, but a process focus may be more beneficial.
The potential role of representational momentum (i.e., a spatial bias in which the judged location of a moving object is displaced slightly forward in the direction of anticipated motion from the actual location of that object) in sport performance is considered. Previous studies of anticipation in sport performance focused on kinematics and contextual information, but findings regarding representational momentum suggest a third source of information, dynamics, also contributes to sport performance. Findings from studies of various sports in which representational momentum (or anticipation suggestive of representational momentum) has been examined (basketball, baseball, cricket, rugby, football [FIFA], ice hockey, motorsports, tennis, badminton, volleyball, taekwondo, dance, and chess) are summarized. Theoretical issues (effects of expertise, transfer of expertise, oculomotor behavior, judgments of coincident timing and time to contact, attentional momentum and inhibition of return, psychological momentum and behavioral momentum, common coding, predictive processing, use of dynamic information, and momentum as a contextual prior) are discussed. Potential directions for future research (how variables that influence representational momentum might influence subsequent anticipation, comparison of closed skills and open skills, effects of goals [intentions] on representational momentum, control of the stimulus, and other spatial biases that might combine with representational momentum) are suggested. Additional implications for theories of representational momentum and for understanding sport performance are noted.
We apply an instance model of memory to investigate people's associative inferences. To set the stage, we report experiments in which people read lab reports and then rated the efficacy of drugs presented in those reports. We show that the model tracks people's inferences. Based on the correspondence, we argue that people's inferences (at least in the context of the problems in our experiments) emerge in the process of encoding and retrieving instances from memory. We present discrepancy encoding as an important principle for an instance theory to not only remember presented information but also infer unstated relationships. We relate our work to that of Professor Gordon Logan, whose research program demonstrates that instance theory can be a productive and domain- general framework for cognitive psychology.
