The effect of varying stimulus and response modes and asymmetric transfer on the dual-task performance of discrete tasks

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Abstract
A verbal short-term memory task and a spatial short-term memory task were performed alone and concurrently. Stimuli for the verbal task were presented either visually or auditorily; responses were made either manually or vocally. The effect of the four different stimulus and response mode combinations on single- and dual-task performance was examined. The effect of asymmetric transfer on dual-task performance was also investigated. Twelve male subjects performed the verbal task using visual stimuli presented on a CRT. A second group of 12 males performed the verbal task using auditory stimuli presented by a voice-generation system. Subjects responded to the verbal task using either a keypad or a voice-recognition system. The presentation order for the response modes was counterbalanced within each group of subjects. Stimuli for the spatial task were always presented visually and subjects always responded manually. Initial analyses of the dual-task data indicated that using the voice-generation system benefited performance. Some benefit was also found for the use of the voice-recognition system. However, these analyses also revealed asymmetric transfer between the response conditions. When the data affected by the asymmetric transfer were eliminated from subsequent analyses, no significant advantages for speech over manual response conditions were found although an advantage for the auditory stimulus condition were still evident. Possible explanations for these results are given.

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