Gan Lu, Zhang Zhilin, Zhang Zhiting, Wu Jinglong, Dai Ji, Funahashi Shintaro
Research Center for Medical Artificial Intelligence, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Shenzhen Technological Research Center for Primate Translational Medicine, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
eNeuro. 2025 Mar 27;12(3). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0542-24.2025. Print 2025 Mar.
When attempting to concurrently perform two distinct cognitive tasks, the performance of either task is frequently compromised. This phenomenon is known as dual-task interference. Although multiple task features have been postulated to influence on dual-task interference, the primary determinant remains unclear. The determinant factor causing dual-task interference is an important issue to understand its mechanism and associated functions including switching tasks and planning task order. The present study investigated this issue using monkeys and three behavioral tasks requiring distinct cognitive processes (spatial working memory, SWM; working memory and long-term memory of objects, PA; object working memory, DMS) and manipulating task pair (SWM and PA or SWM and DMS), task order (fixed or randomized), and task difficulty (different delay lengths). The task introduced first showed better performance as compared with the task introduced second, suggesting the task order as an important factor. However, the performance of the SWM task decreased when preceded by the PA and DMS tasks, while the latter tasks were unaffected when the SWM task was introduced first. This tendency was more obvious in random-order conditions than fixed-order conditions. Further, interference effect increased as task difficulty increased. Although the task order is one determinant, our results show the difference in cognitive process needed for tasks, its complexity, and the demand of working memory resources as more significant determinants for deciding the dominant task in dual-task conditions, indicating importance of neural mechanisms including managing working memory resources and coordinating multiple cognitive processes to understand the cause of dual-task interference.
当试图同时执行两项不同的认知任务时，其中任何一项任务的表现常常会受到影响。这种现象被称为双任务干扰。尽管已假定多种任务特征会影响双任务干扰，但其主要决定因素仍不明确。了解双任务干扰的机制及相关功能（包括任务切换和规划任务顺序），导致双任务干扰的决定因素是一个重要问题。本研究使用猴子和三项需要不同认知过程的行为任务（空间工作记忆，SWM；物体的工作记忆和长期记忆，PA；物体工作记忆，DMS），并对任务对（SWM和PA或SWM和DMS）、任务顺序（固定或随机）以及任务难度（不同延迟长度）进行操控，来研究这个问题。与第二项引入的任务相比，首先引入的任务表现更好，这表明任务顺序是一个重要因素。然而，当PA和DMS任务先于SWM任务时，SWM任务的表现会下降，而当先引入SWM任务时，后两项任务不受影响。这种趋势在随机顺序条件下比固定顺序条件下更明显。此外，干扰效应随着任务难度的增加而增强。虽然任务顺序是一个决定因素，但我们的结果表明，任务所需认知过程的差异、其复杂性以及工作记忆资源的需求，作为在双任务条件下决定主导任务的更重要决定因素，这表明包括管理工作记忆资源和协调多个认知过程在内的神经机制对于理解双任务干扰原因的重要性。
