Dual task interference in cognitive performance

Dual-Task Interference

The two channel experiment I attempted involved driving and reading. Both of these actions are decidedly conscious. However, to have a primary and a secondary action or "stream" (Baars, 1997, p. 39) I chose to drive in an exceedingly familiar route -- from my part time job home. This is a lengthy journey involving a minimum of 35 minutes. Moreover, I engage in it daily (during most of the summer), and am thoroughly familiar with the surroundings on both sides of the vehicle. More importantly, I have been driving in this particular car for the past two years. As such, its novelty has worn off. I am well acquainted with all of the controls, the gadgets, and the levers to make it operate accordingly, so that in this experiment, driving functioned as a control of sorts as a task which -- while being conscious, is closer to involving my unconscious mind.

The novel action I engaged in was reading. Although I am a good reader, I tested myself by reading a piece of literature I have never before read. It was actually a lengthy article from an arts and entertainment magazine. I was able to read this article -- intermittently, while simultaneously (and unconsciously) gauging the distance of other vehicles and my surroundings while driving on the freeway at an extremely moderate speed of 55 miles per hour. I attempted to focus on the magazine article as much as possible while driving and not wrecking. Because the subject of the article was music, I was thoroughly engaged with it -- a lot more so than driving. To assist in the driving aspect I set the car on cruise control and maintained 55 miles per hour in the second lane in attempts to avoid oncoming and outgoing freeway traffic.

Reactions

I was able to drive home without getting into any sort of automobile accident, which was great. This fact, which is empirically observable due to the pristine condition of my automobile, is an external, behavioral finding. Behavioral analysis helps to explicate the "complexities of human behavior" (Vilardaga et al., 2009, p. 106). Internally, however, I was able to recall very little of my journey home. Once I began reading, I did not notice any of the familiar sightings on the side of the road that I typically observe when I am driving home. Another empirically-based external, behavioral finding regarding the driving was that my behavior attracted the attention of two other drivers -- which was explicitly denoted by them honking their horns at me. One of the drivers was in a big rig truck who, after coming behind me, passed me. He could have been honking because I was driving so slowly. There was another man in a vehicle who pulled up alongside me and honked his horn several times to get my attention, and waved his finger in a disapproving, 'don't do that' sort of way before driving on. The social perception of these individuals (Davis and Lennon, 1988, p. 176) was not linked to mine at the time, although I was aware of them.

In terms of my ability to comprehend, internalize, and retain the information I had read in the article, my ability to do so was extremely limited. I was familiar with the main idea (the particular music artist the article was focused on), and basic facts such as he had recently released a new article. But I was unclear about many of the details -- the name of the new article, the relevance of the quotations from the artist to the text that preceded it. I read the same article again once I got home, and noticed several details that I had more or less skimmed over while reading. I did not attempt to skim them, but I simply read the words without fully comprehending them in their proper context -- which is what I was able to do once I got home.

Relationship of Findings to the Readings

My findings seem to have a considerable amount of correlation with the academic concept known as dual-task interference, which is "people's ability (or inability) to perform two or more tasks concurrently" (Pashler, 1994, p. 220). It is noteworthy to mention that the two tasks involved in my project do not necessarily involve the same type of human involvement -- driving involves both the physical and mental capacities of a person, whereas reading pertains to just the latter. In general, my findings were in accordance to the psychological refractory phenomena (PFP), in which in the case of performing dual tasks "the response…becomes slower when the interval between the stimuli is reduced" (Pashler, 1994, p. 222). In my experiment there was no interval between the stimuli, they occurred simultaneously. However, both took place at a slow pace. I typically drive home at 70 miles per hour. And it usually does not take me the better part of 35 minutes to complete a single article. Yet, when the two drivers honked their horns at me, my reading slowed considerably (actually stopped) while I concentrated on driving to see what the others wanted.

It also greatly appears that my difficulties with memory retention and even detailed comprehension of the article reflect the sort of difficulties discussed in Pashler and Johnson's article related to "memory storage and memory retrieval" (p. 156). I could engage in what little physical component of reading that there is -- meaning my eyes would focus on letters and discern words out of them. Yet the trouble I had with producing some sort of meaning of those words, as well as a correlation between them and the surrounding context (not to mention recalling these facets of the article afterwards) confirms the fact that in the realm of memory retrieval…a…more central form of limitation seems to arise" (Pashler and Johnson, p. 184).

Implications for Understanding Human Experience and Professional Practice