On doing two things at once: III. Confirmation of perfect timesharing when simultaneous tasks are ideomotor compatible.
A. G. Greenwald and H. G. Shulman (see record 1974-10326-001) found that 2 tasks characterized by ideomotor (IM) compatibility could be perfectly timeshared (i.e., performed simultaneously without mutual interference). The 2 tasks were pronouncing "A" or "B" in response to hearing those letter names, and making a manual left or right response to seeing a left- or right-positioned arrow. M.-C. Lien, R. W. Proctor, and P. A. Allen (2002) did not replicate Greenwald and Shulman's result, and concluded that their finding of perfect timesharing of 2 IM-compatible tasks might not be replicable. In the present research, Experiment 1 replicated Greenwald and Shulman's 1973 finding while also supporting the conclusion that Lien et al's nonreplication was due to their not instructing subjects to make 2 responses simultaneously in their timeshared task. Experiment 2 again replicated the perfect timesharing finding, using an alternative control procedure that mixed manual and vocal tasks in the same block. ((c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)
Greenwald
Anthony G
AG
U Washington, Dept of Psychology, Seattle, WA, USA. agg@u.washington.edu
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception