Feng S F, Schwemmer M, Gershman S J, Cohen J D
Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2014 Mar;14(1):129-46. doi: 10.3758/s13415-013-0236-9.
Why is it that behaviors that rely on control, so striking in their diversity and flexibility, are also subject to such striking limitations? Typically, people cannot engage in more than a few-and usually only a single-control-demanding task at a time. This limitation was a defining element in the earliest conceptualizations of controlled processing; it remains one of the most widely accepted axioms of cognitive psychology, and is even the basis for some laws (e.g., against the use of mobile devices while driving). Remarkably, however, the source of this limitation is still not understood. Here, we examine one potential source of this limitation, in terms of a trade-off between the flexibility and efficiency of representation ("multiplexing") and the simultaneous engagement of different processing pathways ("multitasking"). We show that even a modest amount of multiplexing rapidly introduces cross-talk among processing pathways, thereby constraining the number that can be productively engaged at once. We propose that, given the large number of advantages of efficient coding, the human brain has favored this over the capacity for multitasking of control-demanding processes.
为什么那些依赖控制的行为，在多样性和灵活性方面如此显著，却也受到如此明显的限制呢？通常情况下，人们一次只能进行少数几个——通常只有一个——需要控制的任务。这一限制是早期控制加工概念化中的一个决定性因素；它仍然是认知心理学中最广泛接受的公理之一，甚至是一些法律（例如，禁止开车时使用移动设备）的基础。然而，值得注意的是，这种限制的根源仍然不为人所知。在这里，我们从表征的灵活性和效率（“复用”）与不同加工路径的同时参与（“多任务处理”）之间的权衡角度，研究这种限制的一个潜在来源。我们表明，即使是适度的复用也会迅速在加工路径之间引入串扰，从而限制一次能够有效参与的数量。我们提出，鉴于高效编码有大量优势，人类大脑更倾向于此，而非控制需求过程的多任务处理能力。
