Epling Samantha L, Russell Paul N, Helton William S
Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand.
Exp Brain Res. 2016 Jan;234(1):133-9. doi: 10.1007/s00221-015-4444-0. Epub 2015 Sep 24.
Cognitive resource theory is a common explanation for both the performance decline in vigilance tasks, known as the vigilance decrement, and the limited ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. The limited supply of cognitive resources may be utilized faster than they are replenished resulting in a performance decrement, or may need to be allocated among multiple tasks with some performance cost. Researchers have proposed both domain-specific, for example spatial versus verbal processing resources, and domain general cognitive resources. One challenge in testing the domain specificity of cognitive resources in vigilance is the current lack of difficult semantic vigilance tasks which reliably produce a decrement. In the present research, we investigated whether the vigilance decrement was found in a new abbreviated semantic discrimination vigilance task, and whether there was a performance decrement in said vigilance task when paired with a word recall task, as opposed to performed individually. As hypothesized, a vigilance decrement in the semantic vigilance task was found in both the single-task and dual-task conditions, along with reduced vigilance performance in the dual-task condition and reduced word recall in the dual-task condition. This is consistent with cognitive resource theory. The abbreviated semantic vigilance task will be a useful tool for researchers interested in determining the specificity of cognitive resources utilized in vigilance tasks.
认知资源理论是对警觉任务中表现下降（即警觉衰退）以及同时执行多项任务能力有限这两种现象的常见解释。认知资源的供应有限，其消耗速度可能快于补充速度，从而导致表现下降，或者可能需要在多项任务之间进行分配，这会带来一定的表现成本。研究人员既提出了特定领域的认知资源，例如空间处理资源与语言处理资源，也提出了通用领域的认知资源。在测试警觉中认知资源的领域特异性时，一个挑战是目前缺乏能可靠地导致表现下降的困难语义警觉任务。在本研究中，我们调查了在一项新的简化语义辨别警觉任务中是否会出现警觉衰退，以及当该警觉任务与单词回忆任务配对时（而非单独执行时），在所述警觉任务中是否会出现表现下降。正如所假设的，在单任务和双任务条件下，语义警觉任务中均出现了警觉衰退，同时双任务条件下的警觉表现降低，双任务条件下的单词回忆也减少。这与认知资源理论一致。对于有兴趣确定警觉任务中所使用认知资源特异性的研究人员来说，简化语义警觉任务将是一个有用的工具。
