Kimura Tsukasa, Kawashima Tomoya
The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (ISIR), Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2024 Jun;77(6):1352-1362. doi: 10.1177/17470218231195198. Epub 2023 Aug 30.
The aim of this study was to examine whether peripheral information facilitates proactive processes during multitasking. For this purpose, peripheral information was presented regularly during multitasking and its effects on the performance of a tracking task (main task: reactive process) and a discrimination task (sub-task: proactive process) were examined. Experiment 1 presented peripheral information (white circles) in the same sensory modality (visual) as the information used for multitasking and the number of circle presentations was manipulated. In Experiment 2, a pure tone (auditory) was presented as peripheral information. We found that, in both experiments, the difficulty of the tracking task influenced discrimination performance, showing that as the difficulty of the tracking task (reactive process) increased, more cognitive resources were consumed in the tracking task, resulting in a decrease in cognitive resources available for the discrimination task (proactive process). In addition, regular presentation of peripheral information facilitated discrimination task performance in both experiments. Interestingly, this peripheral information also facilitated the tracking task performance (reactive process) even if the tracking task was difficult. Moreover, this promoting effect of the peripheral information occurred regardless of the sensory modality. This study revealed that processing of peripheral information facilitates the proactive process even if more cognitive resources are consumed, and that this facilitating effect does not conflict with multitasking and provides a margin of cognitive resources and also facilitates the reactive process. Our results provide evidence of how peripheral information and cognitive resources are used during multitasking.
本研究的目的是考察在多任务处理过程中，外周信息是否有助于主动加工过程。为此，在多任务处理过程中定期呈现外周信息，并考察其对追踪任务（主要任务：反应性加工过程）和辨别任务（次要任务：主动性加工过程）表现的影响。实验1呈现的外周信息（白色圆圈）与多任务处理所使用信息的感觉通道相同（视觉通道），并对圆圈呈现的次数进行了操控。在实验2中，呈现纯音（听觉通道）作为外周信息。我们发现，在两个实验中，追踪任务的难度均影响辨别任务的表现，这表明随着追踪任务（反应性加工过程）难度的增加，追踪任务消耗的认知资源增多，导致可用于辨别任务（主动性加工过程）的认知资源减少。此外，在两个实验中，外周信息的定期呈现均促进了辨别任务的表现。有趣的是，即使追踪任务难度较大，这种外周信息也促进了追踪任务（反应性加工过程）的表现。而且，外周信息的这种促进作用与感觉通道无关。本研究表明，即使消耗了更多认知资源，外周信息的加工仍有助于主动加工过程，且这种促进作用与多任务处理不冲突，还能提供认知资源余量，并且也促进了反应性加工过程。我们的研究结果为多任务处理过程中外周信息和认知资源的使用方式提供了证据。
