Kelvin F H Lui, Hezul Tin Yan Ng, Pu Fan, Yetta Kwailing Wong, Alan C-N Wong
{"title":"Bridging concurrent multitasking, task switching, and complex multitasking: The general and specific skills involved.","authors":"Kelvin F H Lui, Hezul Tin Yan Ng, Pu Fan, Yetta Kwailing Wong, Alan C-N Wong","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001332","DOIUrl":"10.1037/xhp0001332","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research on multitasking has adopted a diverse range of simple paradigms covering concurrent multitasking and task-switching scenarios, alongside more complex paradigms simulating real-life situations more closely. Investigating the relationships among them is essential for uncovering shared cognitive mechanisms, advancing a unified theory of multitasking, and exploring the link of multitasking to other cognitive functions. We adopted an individual-difference approach to examine the unity and separability of multitasking ability. Nine paradigms were completed by 224 university students, with three paradigms each for concurrent multitasking, task switching, and complex multitasking. Confirmatory factor analyses showed both general and specific factors required to capture individual differences in performance. Specifically, individual differences in task switching performance can be explained by a general ability shared with the other two types of paradigms, whereas both general and specific abilities were involved in concurrent multitasking and complex multitasking. These results help reconcile conflicting findings in previous studies of group differences in multitasking and highlight the limitation in the generalizability of claims based solely on performance in a single paradigm. Given the multifaceted nature of multitasking, it is recommended that assessment and intervention of multitasking encompass a comprehensive array of paradigm types to cover both general and specific abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":"875-894"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144065007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alejandro Lleras, Zoe Jing Xu, Howard Jia He Tan, Yujie Shao, Simona Buetti
{"title":"Quantifying the relationship between search efficiency and perceptual similarity in color space across different efficient search tasks.","authors":"Alejandro Lleras, Zoe Jing Xu, Howard Jia He Tan, Yujie Shao, Simona Buetti","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001327","DOIUrl":"10.1037/xhp0001327","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When looking for a specific object in the environment, the visual system guides attention toward objects in the scene that contain features that are similar to those of the object in mind, also known as the target template. However, the precise relation between search performance and perceptual similarity (between objects in the scene and the target template) has not been properly characterized. Recently, target-contrast signal theory proposed an explicit relationship linking search performance to the concept of top-down \"target-distractor contrast,\" with contrast being a measure of the amount of perceptual evidence that allows peripheral processing to differentiate target from distractors. We used a well-characterized color space to investigate the relationship between target-distractor similarity and search efficiency. We compared three different models relating color distance to search performance: the universal law of generalization, and two implementations of target-contrast signal theory. In the first, target-distractor distance indexes the target-distractor contrast, while the second uses the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between the neuronal responses to the attended color and the distractor color to index target-distractor contrast. When the target color is known but the distractor color cannot be anticipated, perceptual distance best predicts performance (Experiments 1, 2A, and 2B). When target and distractor colors repeat from trial to trial, the SNR measure best captures performance (Experiments 3A and 3B). Finally, when neither the target nor the distractor color is known to observers, performance deteriorates significantly and is no longer indexed by either of these two measures of target-distractor contrast (Experiment 4). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":"850-874"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144081598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Repetition violating events do not enhance sensitivity to embedded content, but repeated events can reduce sensitivity.","authors":"Blake W Saurels, Qingyu Ma, Derek H Arnold","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001324","DOIUrl":"10.1037/xhp0001324","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Oddball paradigms involve the presentation of sequences of repeated events that are broken by a novel \"oddball.\" These have been used to examine the neural and perceptual consequences of predictive processes in the brain. Two intriguing perceptual findings are that people are more sensitive to visual content embedded in oddballs and that people perceive oddballs as longer lasting-relative to repeated events. Recent investigations have looked at the possibility that fluctuations in attention during presentation sequences might impact perception though. Because the number of repeated \"standards\" (that do not require a behavioral judgment) seen before a \"test\" (which can require a behavioral judgment) is often circumscribed, as more standards are encountered, the probability of a further standard decreases, whereas the probability of a test increases. So, later tests can be anticipated, whereas early tests are improbable. It has been shown that when all tests can be anticipated, and all tests are equally likely to be a further repeated standard or an oddball, oddballs still seem longer lasting than repeats. Here we show that the same conditions undermine the visual acuity advantage for oddball content. Our experiment clarifies that this increase in acuity for oddballs results from a degradation of acuity to repeat tests that cannot be anticipated. We found that people's pupils tended to dilate as they expected a test, consistent with top-down attention scaling with test probability. In a second experiment, we replicated the time perception difference and the lack of visual acuity difference under the same experimental conditions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":"837-849"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144024607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of kinesthetic and visuospatial cues in pain-related movement avoidance.","authors":"Xaver Fuchs, Tobias Heed","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001318","DOIUrl":"10.1037/xhp0001318","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When humans experience pain during a movement, they can develop fear and avoid this movement afterward; these responses likely play a role in chronic pain. Previous experiments have investigated the underlying learning mechanisms by pairing movements with painful stimuli but, usually, other visuospatial cues were concurrently presented during the learning context. Therefore, participants might have primarily avoided these visuospatial rather than the movement-related cues, potentially invalidating related interpretations of pain-induced movement avoidance. Here, we separated kinesthetic from visuospatial cues to investigate their respective contribution to avoidance. Participants used a hand-held robotic manipulandum and, during an acquisition phase, received painful stimuli during center-out movements. Pain stimuli could be avoided by choosing curved rather than direct movement trajectories. To distinguish the contribution of kinesthetic versus visuospatial cues we tested two generalization contexts: either participants executed novel movements that passed through the same location at which pain had previously been presented in the acquisition phase; or they were reseated and then executed identical movements as those that had been associated with pain, but without passing through the pain-associated spatial location. Avoidance generalization was comparable in both contexts, and remarkably, highly correlated between them. Our findings suggest that both visuospatial and kinesthetic cues available during acquisition were associated with pain and led to avoidance. Our research corroborates previous studies' findings that pain can become associated with movements. However, visuospatial cues also play a critical role for avoidance acquisition. Future studies should distinguish movement-related and space-related associations in pain-related avoidance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":"944-954"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144023057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Setting specific goals improves cognitive effort, self-efficacy, and sustained attention.","authors":"Lauren D Garner, Rija Mohammed, Matthew K Robison","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001331","DOIUrl":"10.1037/xhp0001331","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Investigating the efficacy of goal-setting strategies is critical in understanding how individuals regulate their behavior, particularly within cognitive tasks. The present study examines the impact of self-set versus experimenter-set goals and point incentives on performance across three experiments using two sustained attention tasks. In Experiment 1, we compared self-set and experimenter-set goals in the psychomotor vigilance task, hypothesizing that self-set goals would lead to better performance due to increased agency. No significant differences emerged in task performance between the two conditions. Participants who self-set their goals also set increasingly easier goal standards over time. Experiment 2 introduced a novel task paradigm \"Green Means Go,\" modeled after the psychomotor vigilance task, and revealed faster reaction times in goal-setting conditions compared to a no-goal condition. Having a specific goal, either self-set or experimenter-set, was better for performance than having no goals. Experiment 3 allowed all participants to set their own goals and explored the influence of a points-based incentivization system on goal-setting tendencies. Those who received points set more difficult goals. Findings suggest that goal-setting mechanisms can enhance task performance and help reduce vigilance decrements, with potential implications for using goal-setting to elevate cognitive performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":"895-910"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144081599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christian Wolf, Michael B Steinborn, Lynn Huestegge
{"title":"Effort in oculomotor control: Role of instructions and reward on spatiotemporal eye movement dynamics.","authors":"Christian Wolf, Michael B Steinborn, Lynn Huestegge","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001330","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Effort is an important theoretical construct in several psychological disciplines, yet there is little consensus on how it manifests in behavior. Here, we operationalized effort as performance improvements beyond speed-accuracy tradeoffs and argue that oculomotor kinematics offer a novel conceptual lens on effort regulation. We investigated the efficiency and persistence of mere task instructions to induce transient effort. In a saccadic selection task, participants were instructed to look at targets as quickly and accurately as possible (standard instructions) or to mobilize all resources and respond even faster and more accurately (\"to give 110%,\" effort instructions). We compared results to standard speeded performance (baseline block) and to a potential upper performance limit linking effort instructions to performance-contingent rewards (reward block). Eye movements were faster, more accurate, and initiated earlier when effort was instructed. Yet, these effects were more strongly pronounced and more persistent over time when effort was additionally rewarded. Importantly, a simultaneous improvement in speed and accuracy was only observed with reward. Altogether, the present findings show that instructions may spark effort, but reward sustains it, turning volatile engagement into lasting performance. This underscores that effort thrives when driven by purpose. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144530782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philipp Raßbach, Eric Grießbach, Rouwen Cañal-Bruland, Oliver Herbort
{"title":"Body-related effects of concurrent movement bias embodied choices.","authors":"Philipp Raßbach, Eric Grießbach, Rouwen Cañal-Bruland, Oliver Herbort","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001346","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Human decision making often involves making a choice while concurrently moving. Prior studies showed that the dynamic body state biases choices, with deciders opting for choices associated with lower motor effort (motor cost bias) and spatial overlap with concurrent movement (cognitive crosstalk bias). In this study, we examined whether bodily movements (e.g., moving a limb) or resulting visual movements in the environment (e.g., a ball rolling in a specific direction due to the limb movement) give rise to the cognitive crosstalk bias. In a virtual embodied choice task, participants manually tracked a stimulus and concurrently made decisions to evade an obstacle and collect rewards. In two experiments, we orthogonally manipulated the motor costs for choices and spatial features of the body state during tracking. Importantly, we disentangled bodily movements during tracking and resulting visual movements on the computer screen to assess their relative contributions to the cognitive crosstalk bias. Both motor costs and cognitive crosstalk biased participants' choices. Cognitive crosstalk specifically was determined solely by the bodily movement direction in both experiments. This result pattern could not be attenuated by increasing the saliency of visual tracking movements on the computer screen in the second experiment. Our results suggest that bodily movements primarily cause cognitive crosstalk during embodied choices. These findings have implications for embodied choice models and dual-tasking research, as they show a potential divergence between findings from classical dual-task paradigms and more dynamic embodied choices that are influenced by motor costs and cognitive crosstalk resulting from the moving body. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144530781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Morpho-syntactico-semantic parafoveal processing: Eye-tracking evidence from word n + 1 and word n in Russian.","authors":"Anastasia Stoops, Jack Dempsey, Kiel Christianson","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001354","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Two experiments compared morpho-syntactico-semantic parafoveal processing of five-letter words n + 1 (Experiment 1) with five-letter regions at the end of longer words n (Experiment 2), understudied cross-linguistically. Earlier boundary-change studies showed that subject/object case assignment in Russian can be extracted from a parafoveally presented but never directly fixated letter when the related preview is the most expected continuation (Stoops & Christianson, 2017, 2019). This study reversed the syntactic expectations for the identical and related previews (Cloze ratings: 94% grammatical identical object vs. 0% ungrammatical related subject). The related preview was read more slowly than the no-change preview in the later measures: go-past for the words <i>n</i> + 1 and <i>n</i>, according to both frequentist and Bayesian analyses. Additionally, the study clarifies the augmented allocation of attention hypothesis-skilled readers process parafoveally visible parts of a longer word faster than length-controlled upcoming word <i>n</i> + 1, yet the message-level contextual linguistic information affected the target words <i>n</i> and <i>n</i> + 1 similarly. The most intriguing finding is the delayed morpho-syntactico-semantic effect: even though the morphologically ungrammatical marking was parafoveally available, the syntactic fit only affected delayed processing, manifested as increased reading of previous text. More cross-linguistic work is needed to understand the role of higher level linguistic information beyond the predictability of individual lexical items on parafoveal processing during reading. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144509249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The rubber tool illusion reveals how body image modifies body schema.","authors":"Alp Erkent, Emre Ugur, Erhan Oztop, Inci Ayhan","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001355","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rubber hand illusion and tool-use paradigms have been extensively used to investigate body representation. Although both approaches rely on multisensory integration and external object incorporation, they are typically studied in isolation. Here, we introduce a novel paradigm that combines these methods to investigate whether perceptual modifications to body representation can induce motor changes, and vice versa. First, participants completed a tool-use task, actively using a short or long grabber tool to move cubes. When asked to point toward the forearm midpoint, only long tool users exhibited a distal shift, denoting an expansion in motor representation. Next, participants experienced the \"rubber tool illusion\" by passively holding the same tool while observing a rubber hand grasp an identical-looking tool. Notably, participants holding a short tool exhibited an expanded forearm representation when they observed a synchronously stroked long tool during illusion. Control experiments revealed that this effect depended on prior active tool use, embodiment of the observed rubber hand/tool, and a length mismatch between the held and observed tools. These findings reveal for the first time that motor representation of forearm length, a component of body schema, can be modulated by changes in body image. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144509210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dissociation between attentional and oculomotor habits.","authors":"Emma C Holtz, Chen Chen, Vanessa G Lee","doi":"10.1037/xhp0001345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001345","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Attention and eye movements often align in visual tasks, but they can also dissociate, as when people shift attention without moving their eyes. Most studies have examined these systems over short timescales, capturing momentary attention or eye movements. Here, we explored their interaction over a longer timescale using a location probability learning paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants searched for a target that frequently appeared in one quadrant, developing both an oculomotor habit (initial saccades toward the high-probability quadrant) and an attentional habit (faster search when the target appeared in the high-probability region). Both habits emerged simultaneously and persisted in a neutral testing phase with random target locations. This coupling broke down in Experiments 2 and 3, where participants were cued to saccade toward specific quadrants that aligned or misaligned with the high-probability target quadrant. In a spatially unbiased testing phase without the cue, the oculomotor habit persisted toward the previously saccaded quadrant, while search speed was fastest in the high-probability area, unaffected by prior cuing. Thus, while oculomotor and attentional habits are often coupled, they arise from distinct mechanisms: oculomotor habits are driven by eye movement history, and attentional habits by search success. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":50195,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144509247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}