Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 1(1):50–76, MARCH 1995
Issn Print: 1076-898X
Publication Date: March 1995
Training for Attentional Control in Dual Task Settings: A Comparison of Young and Old Adults
Arthur Kramer;John Larish;David Strayer;
+ Author Information
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign2Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign3Department of Psychology, University of Utah.
Abstract
The authors examined whether the learning and performance of dual tasks by young and old adults could be enhanced through training. Adults were trained with either a fixed-priority or variable-priority training strategy on a monitoring task and an alphabet–arithmetic task and then transferred to a scheduling and a paired-associates running memory task. Participants in the variable-priority condition learned the monitoring and alphabet–arithmetic tasks more quickly and achieved a higher level of mastery on these tasks than did those in the fixed-priority condition. Moreover, participants trained with the variable-priority technique showed evidence of the development of automatic processing and a more rapid rate of learning and higher level of mastery of the transfer tasks than did the fixed-priority participants. These results are discussed in terms of the mechanisms that underlie learning and performance of dual tasks and with respect to potential applications.
