Research article summary (published 30 Mar 2003):

Vanishing dual-task interference after practice: has the bottleneck been eliminated or is it merely latent?

Full Abstract

Practice can, in some cases, largely eliminate measured dual-task interference. Does this absence of interference indicate the absence of a processing bottleneck (defined as an inability to carry out certain stages in parallel)? The authors show that a bottleneck need not produce any observable interference, provided that there is no temporal overlap in the demand for bottleneck stages on the 2 tasks. Such a "latent" bottleneck is especially likely after practice, when central stages are short. The authors provide new evidence that a latent bottleneck occurred for a participant who produced no interference in M. Van Selst, E. Ruthruff, and J. C. Johnston (1999). These findings demonstrate that the absence of dual-task interference does not necessarily indicate the absence of a processing bottleneck.

Learn Faster Today      Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Ruthruff, Eric (E); Johnston, James C (JC); Van Selst, Mark (M); Whitsell, Shelly (S); Remington, Roger (R);

Affiliation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA. eruthruff(-atsign-)mail.arc.nasa.gov

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Apr; vol 29 (issue 2) : pp 280-9

Dates: Created 2003/05/22; Completed 2003/09/09; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12760615, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Attention Field Dependence-Independence Follow-Up Studies Humans Mental Processes - physiology Pattern Recognition, Automated Perceptual Masking - physiology

Pitch Perception - physiology Practice (Psychology) Problem Solving - physiology Psychological Theory Reaction Time - physiology Refractory Period, Psychological - physiology Visual Perception - physiology

Related articles

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.

See a large map of 100+ related articles.