Divided attention across complex audio-visual tasks under conditions of signal interference
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1
Monash University, Physiology, Australia
Background: Our ability to conduct two demanding tasks simultaneously, allocating attention resources appropriately, and knowing when to switch between one and the other has serious ramifications for many daily events, and when there is cognitive decline. Most divided attention (DA) studies have used simple dual task conditions, with clear signals and with no interference being present whereas, in most daily life, such conditions are the norm, placing more strain on our ability to allocate attention during multi-tasking. We examined audio-visual multi-tasking under more realistic conditions of noise and interference.
Methods: Five groups undertook a speech-in-noise (SiN) task with linguistically-simple 4-6 word meaningful sentences delivered through headphones, in five levels of background multi-talker babble (each test session using one fixed level). The control group undertook only this task. The other four, DA, groups undertook this task while doing mazes on a tablet PC; the four groups differed in the level of maze difficulty which was fixed for each group. Pre-testing trials in the DA groups, as well as experiments in other control groups, were conducted to establish that the mazes differed in degree of difficulty.
Results: The greatest distractor effect of the visuospatial maze task on sentence recall occurred at the easiest maze level, and for intermediate noise levels (the highest and lowest noise levels showing ceiling and floor effects on sentence recall in the SiN task). With increasing maze difficulty, performance shifted back toward control group values, as indexed in changes in the point of subjective equality derived from Boltzman functions fitted to group data, with no change in function slopes. There was also no change in the pattern of recall of sentence keywords as a function of keyword position. However, even at the most difficult maze level, when almost no mazes were done, SiN task performance was still poorer than in control subjects. For the visuspatial task, at a group level, performance did not appear affected by the simultaneous SiN task, but individual data showed large variance that varied systematically with background noise level in the SiN task.
Discussion: We propose that the visuospatial distractor effects are due to divided executive attention and divided orienting attention. Both effects are present when the visuospatial task is easy but when it is hard, only the second effect causes interference with the auditory task.
Keywords:
divided attention psychology,
audio-visual processing,
Speech in noise,
Executive Function,
orienting attention
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Oral
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Tamaryan
K and
Rajan
R
(2013). Divided attention across complex audio-visual tasks under conditions of signal interference.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00131
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Received:
15 Oct 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Ramesh Rajan, Monash University, Physiology, Monash, Victoria, VIC 3800, Australia, ramesh.rajan@monash.edu