A task-interruption study on the activation of the primary task during the processing of the secondary task

Journal of Cognitive Psychology, vol. 37, pp. 510–529

Abstract

Task-interruption models propose that the primary task is maintained in working memory during a task interruption. We tested this notion in two experiments using primary tasks with a predefined sequence of subtasks. The secondary-task stimuli were not only associated with a response in the secondary task, but also afforded a response in the last pre-interruption subtask of the primary task. The responses for these two tasks overlapped at the spatial level (different pairs of response keys with the same spatial mapping for each task) in Experiment 1 and at the physical level (same response-key pair) in Experiment 2. In both experiments, resumption costs indicated that task interruptions impaired the performance in the primary task. Moreover, in Experiment 1, the secondary task was performed faster when the secondary-task stimulus required a spatially overlapping response in the secondary task and the currently irrelevant pre-interruption subtask than when it was associated with spatially non-overlapping responses in these two tasks. This between-task congruency effect provides evidence for the activation of the primary task during secondary-task processing.

Authors 3

1. Patricia Hirsch corresponding Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Sandra Hensen Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Iring Koch Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany