Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society — Volume 14 — November ...

Sunday Morning Papers 272–278
9:00–9:15 (272)
Effects of Stress, Working Memory Capacity, and Inferential Complexity
on Foreign Language Reading Comprehension. LESTER
C. LOSCHKY, MANPREET K. RAI, RICHARD J. HARRIS, PATRI-
CIA C. BARROS, & LINDSAY G. COOK, Kansas State University—
We investigated effects of stress, working memory (WM) capacity, and
inferential complexity on foreign language (FL) readers’ inference comprehension,
in terms of accuracy (processing effectiveness) and reading
speed (processing efficiency). Fifty-five intermediate-level Spanish
learners’ reading comprehension was measured using questions with
three levels of inferential complexity: noninference, bridging-inference,
and pragmatic-inference. We measured participants’ WM capacity and
varied their stress level using a video camera. The results showed that
higher WM learners were more accurate overall. Stress decreased efficiency,
with a trend toward greater effects on RTs for questions requiring
greater inferential complexity. Consistent with Eysenck et al.’s (2007)
attentional control theory, analyses showed that higher WM learners
strategically traded efficiency for greater effectiveness, whereas lower
WM learners only did so (less successfully) under stress. Thus, the results
showed that stress impedes FL reading comprehension through
interactions between WM capacity and inferential complexity but can be
strategically compensated for by increasing processing time.
Divided Attention
Republic Ballroom, Sunday Morning, 8:00–9:55
Chaired by Andrew Heathcote, University of Newcastle, Australia
8:00–8:15 (273)
Testing the Architecture of Cognition. ANDREW HEATHCOTE,
AMI EIDELS, & SCOTT D. BROWN, University of Newcastle, Australia—Psychologists
have long sought ways to identify the architecture
of cognition, from Donders’s (1859) subtractive methodology, through
Sternberg’s (1969) additive factors methodology for establishing selective
influence on a processing stage, and culminating in Townsend and
Nozawa’s (1995) system factorial technology (SFT). SFT analyzes response
time distribution, rather than summaries such as mean RT, allowing
it to avoid the limitations of earlier approaches and make strong
inferences (Platt, 1964). SFT uses signature functions that identify architectural
variations critical to the study of attention and perception,
such as whether a system is serial or parallel and whether it is affected
by capacity limitations. We propose a nonparametric Bayesian approach,
based on Klugkist, Laudy, and Hoijtink (2005), to statistical inference
for SFT. We benchmark its statistical performance for testing selective
influence, where there exist alternative approaches from econometrics,
and illustrate its broader application to testing SFT hypotheses where no
alternative tests exist.
8:20–8:35 (274)
Dual Task With and Without Cost: An Underlying Modular Architecture.
ASHER COHEN, MORAN ISRAEL, MAYA ZUCKERMAN,
& ARIT GLICKSOHN, Hebrew University of Jerusalem—Dual task
costs are often documented, but their underlying costs are disputed. We
conducted experiments in which participants performed one or two visual
tasks over eight sessions. In the first set of experiments, the input to
both tasks was presented simultaneously. The two tasks either shared a
module or did not share a module. Clear dual task costs were observed
when the tasks shared a module, and no costs were observed when the
tasks did not share a module. The very same tasks were performed in a
second set of experiments, except that the SOA of the input to the two
tasks varied between trials. Here, a clear cost was observed even when
the tasks did not share a module. The results suggest that a modular
architecture is an important factor in dual task performance and that the
PRP paradigm is not adequate for examining structural dual task costs.
8:40–8:55 (275)
Supertaskers: Extraordinary Ability in Multitasking. DAVID L.
STRAYER & JASON M. WATSON, University of Utah—Theory
suggests that driving should be impaired for all motorists when they
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concurrently talk on a cell phone. But is everybody impaired by this dualtask
combination? We tested 200 participants in a high-fidelity driving
simulator in both single- and dual-task conditions. The dual-task condition
involved concurrently performing a very demanding auditory version
of the operation span (OSPAN) task. Whereas the vast majority of participants
showed significant performance decrements in dual-task conditions
(compared to single-task conditions for both the driving and OSPAN
tasks), 2% of the sample showed absolutely no performance decrements
across the single- and dual-task conditions. In the single-task condition,
these supertaskers scored in the top quartile on all dependent measures
associated with driving, and OSPAN tasks and Monte Carlo simulations
indicated that the frequency of supertaskers was significantly greater than
chance. We suggest that, in demanding dual-task situations, supertaskers
recruit from broader neural regions than do the population at large.
9:00–9:15 (276)
Triple-Task Performance Reveals Common Codes for Spatial Information.
PAUL ATCHLEY & DAVID MARSHALL, University of
Kansas—Multiple resource theory (Wickens, 1980, 2002) suggests attention
may use separate resource pools and share common codes (such as
spatial codes). This view is supported by work showing that spatial coding
for verbal and visual attention information may overlap physiologically
in right hemisphere regions. We examined cross-modal dual-task performance
using a dichotic listening task to present verbal information and a
pointing task to collect visual attention data. Participants listened to word
streams of directional words and color words in each ear and responded to
one ear on a block of trials by producing compatible direction (e.g., “up:
north”) or color (e.g., “ruby: red”) responses while performing a visual
task in which they identified a centrally presented target and then localized
a target presented peripherally along the same axes as the directional
words. The data showed clear code interference effects; dichotic evidence
for a right lateralized effect for direction was mixed.
9:20–9:35 (277)
Evidence Against a Unitary Central Bottleneck: Reductions of Dual-
Task Costs Depend on Modality Pairings. ELIOT HAZELTINE, University
of Iowa, ERIC RUTHRUFF, University of New Mexico, & TIM
WIFALL, University of Iowa—Practice can dramatically reduce dualtask
costs, in some cases, completely eliminating them. However, dualtask
costs are reduced at different rates, depending on the particular combination
of tasks. We examined the role that task similarity, in terms of
the input and output modalities, plays in reduction of dual-task costs with
practice. Four groups of participants performed a visual-manual task that
was paired with either another visual-manual task, a visual-vocal task, an
auditory-manual task, or an auditory-vocal task. Although task difficulty
was similar across all conditions, only the auditory-vocal group was able
to eliminate dual-task costs after 16 sessions of practice. These findings
suggest that dual-task costs after practice depend on crosstalk between
modality-specific representations rather than on competition for amodal
central operations.
9:40–9:55 (278)
When Two Objects Are Easier Than One: Implications for
Object- Based Attention. W. TRAMMELL NEILL, YONGNA LI, &
GEORGE A. SEROR, University at Albany—In many studies, subjects
process two features of one object more easily than they do two features
of two objects. Such within-object superiority suggests that attention is
object based rather than merely space based. However, other studies find
the opposite result: between-object superiority (e.g., Davis & Holmes,
2005; Neill, O’Connor, & Li, 2008). How can it be easier to divide attention
between features of different objects than between features of the
same object? We consider three explanations: (1) Processing capacity
may be initially divided between objects, so that features of the same
object compete for allocated capacity, but features of different objects do
not. (2) Attention to two features of the same object may cause irrelevant
object information to also be processed. (3) When target features are integral
to object shapes, whole objects may be easier to compare than the
component features. We report multiple experiments supporting the third
explanation.