Examining the cognitive processes underyling the control of dual-task representations

• Applicant: Dr. Patricia Hirsch
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532929742

In everyday life, we are often confronted with situations requiring us to perform two tasks in temporal overlap. Simultaneous task processing typically results in substantial performance costs. To gain new insights into the limitations in dual-task performance, the present project examines the mental representations that govern our behavior in dual-task situations and the cognitive mechanisms controlling these representations. A mental representation of a task contains all information (e.g., goals, stimuli, responses, and stimulus-response mappings), enabling task processing from stimulus encoding to response execution. A central notion in cognitive psychology is that a mental representation of a task has be activated in working memory in order to perform a task. Recent studies suggest that the mental representation of a dual task comprises multiple informational components, including, for instance, a task-pair set and separate task representations for the two tasks which have to be performed in a dual-task context. A task-pair set is a single representation in which the identity of the two tasks to be performed in a dual task is jointly represented. Since the task-pair set provides information about the identities of the tasks to be performed in a dual task, it has to be activated before executing these two tasks. The present project systematically examine the temporal dynamics of task-pair set activation, the role of endogenous control for task-pair set activation, and the effects of interference between task-pairs on task-pair set selection. The main goal of the project is to deepen our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying task-pair set selection in dual-task contexts. Moreover, the project aims to investigate the role of task-pair set selection for the age-related decline in dual-task performance. The findings of this project might help to develop both theoretical accounts of limitations in dual-task performance and evidence-based recommendations for the design of workplaces and human-machine interfaces. The project will, thus, tap into a highly relevant topic, especially for safety-critical domains where errors can lead to accidents and for all areas where a high human productivity is important.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Iring Koch