Concurrent task effects on memory retrieval.
Previous studies combining continuous free recall with a concurrent task have generally shown that concurrent tasks impose fairly negligible effects on memory retrieval. By contrast, dual-task studies employing either cued recall or semantic retrieval reveal gross memory impairment and suggest that retrieval is delayed by the centrally demanding phase of the concurrent tasks (i.e., response selection). To explore this conflict, subjects performed continuous free recall while carrying out a serial-choice-response time (RT) task, as in the previous free recall studies. Unlike these previous studies, however, the choice-RT task utilized arbitrary stimulus-response mappings in order to increase the proportion of time devoted to the centrally demanding response selection phase. Recall total was reduced significantly, and recall latency was slowed substantially.
Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620-7200, USA. drohrer@chuma1.cas.usf.edu
Doug
D
Rohrer
Harold E
HE
Pashler
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003118:Color Perception; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012033:Refractory Period, Psychological; D012691:Serial Learning; D014706:Verbal Learning