Goh Hui-Ting, Gordon James, Sullivan Katherine J, Winstein Carolee J
a Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Faculty of Medicine , University of Malaya , Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia.
J Mot Behav. 2014;46(2):95-105. doi: 10.1080/00222895.2013.868337. Epub 2014 Jan 21.
The aim of this study was to examine the validity of a 2-choice audio-vocal reaction time (RT) probe task for measuring the changes in attentional demand during practice and learning of a discrete motor task. Twenty participants practiced the motor task across 3 days and were probed with the RT task during either the preparation or execution phase of the primary task. As practice progressed, participants improved in the primary task performance and shortened the RTs to the probe task. This indicated that less attention was required to plan and execute the movement and suggested that the RT probe task was a sensitive and valid tool to measure changes in attentional demands across practice. The authors implemented several additional experimental controls to address possible confounders including unintentional learning of the probe task, primary-secondary task trade-off effects, and compliance with task priority instructions. These experimental controls further ensured the validity of the probe paradigm and interpretability of the dual-task cost findings. Our experimental methods provided confirmatory evidence for the validity of the 2-choice RT task as a means to assess attentional demands during motor learning.
本研究的目的是检验二选一音频-发声反应时（RT）探测任务在测量离散运动任务练习和学习过程中注意力需求变化方面的有效性。20名参与者在3天内练习该运动任务，并在主要任务的准备阶段或执行阶段接受RT任务探测。随着练习的进行，参与者在主要任务表现上有所提高，并且缩短了对探测任务的反应时。这表明计划和执行动作所需的注意力减少，提示RT探测任务是测量练习过程中注意力需求变化的一种灵敏且有效的工具。作者实施了几项额外的实验控制措施，以解决可能的混杂因素，包括对探测任务的无意学习、主次任务权衡效应以及对任务优先级指令的遵守情况。这些实验控制进一步确保了探测范式的有效性以及双任务成本结果的可解释性。我们的实验方法为二选RT任务作为评估运动学习过程中注意力需求的一种手段的有效性提供了确证性证据。
