Merrill E C, Peacock M
University of Alabama.
Am J Ment Retard. 1994 Mar;98(5):588-93.
Individuals with and without mental retardation did a dual task procedure designed to investigate how task difficulty influenced the allocation of attention. The primary task required semantic category decisions. Subjects sorted cards according to whether the object pictured on the card belonged to a target category. The easy decision task used basic level categories (horse and hammer). The difficult decision task used superordinate categories (animals and tools). While making decisions, subjects were required to signal detection of auditory probes. Response times to the probes were used to index attention to the primary task. Subjects without mental retardation allocated more attention to the difficult task. Those with mental retardation gave similar attention to the easy and difficult tasks. Possible explanations for their failure to allocate attention in accordance with task difficulty were discussed.
患有和未患有智力障碍的个体进行了一项双重任务程序,旨在研究任务难度如何影响注意力分配。主要任务是进行语义类别判断。受试者根据卡片上所绘物体是否属于目标类别对卡片进行分类。简单判断任务使用基本层次类别(马和锤子)。困难判断任务使用上级类别(动物和工具)。在做判断时,要求受试者对听觉探测信号进行检测。对探测信号的反应时间被用来衡量对主要任务的注意力。未患智力障碍的受试者对困难任务分配了更多注意力。患有智力障碍的受试者对简单任务和困难任务给予的注意力相似。文中讨论了他们未能根据任务难度分配注意力的可能原因。