title: How two share two tasks: evidence of a social psychological refractory period effect.
abstract: A strong assumption shared by major theoretical approaches to cognition posits that the human cognitive system has a limited capacity for information processing. Evidence supporting this claim comes from the dual-task paradigm in which one cognitive system has to process two tasks simultaneously. In this study, we examined whether bottleneck-like processing can also be elicited when a dual task is shared between two individuals. Under dual-task instructions giving priority to Task 1, we found evidence of a psychological refractory period effect in dual-task and joint-task conditions. Under equal priority instructions, we replicated the finding of a psychological refractory period effect in the dual-task, but not in the joint-task condition. These findings are in line with the assumption that a social psychological refractory period effect can be induced across two individuals. We suggest that this effect is due to task-specific monitoring requirements. We discuss our findings with respect to both dual-task and joint action theories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute For Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. roman.liepelt@uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liepelt
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Prinz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012033:Refractory Period, Psychological