Predictability improves dual-task performance: the effects of explicit and implicit learning
- Predictability is increasingly recognized as an important principle in perception and motor learning. The pursuit of increased predictability seems to one of the main goals that the human system pursues. Therefore, providing predictability in one of the most challenging situations that humans face, namely multitasking, a promising line of research. In this thesis the impact of predictability was systematically investigated in five experiments. In the first four experiments predictability was achieved by implementing a repeating pattern in one task, or both tasks. Participants acquired knowledge of these patterns either explicitly or implicitly in several training sessions, under single-task or dual-task conditions. We tested whether this increased predictability helped dual-task performance after the training sessions. The results suggest that predictability is helpful for dual-task performance, although the benefits are confined to the predictable task itself. In a fifth experiment wePredictability is increasingly recognized as an important principle in perception and motor learning. The pursuit of increased predictability seems to one of the main goals that the human system pursues. Therefore, providing predictability in one of the most challenging situations that humans face, namely multitasking, a promising line of research. In this thesis the impact of predictability was systematically investigated in five experiments. In the first four experiments predictability was achieved by implementing a repeating pattern in one task, or both tasks. Participants acquired knowledge of these patterns either explicitly or implicitly in several training sessions, under single-task or dual-task conditions. We tested whether this increased predictability helped dual-task performance after the training sessions. The results suggest that predictability is helpful for dual-task performance, although the benefits are confined to the predictable task itself. In a fifth experiment we focused on providing between task predictability, which led to a large performance improvement in both tasks, prompting the discussion about what constitutes a task, in the sense of when can two tasks be perceived as a single task comprising both, a theoretical problem we tried to tackle in one of the articles.
Explanations for the findings, theoretical implications, methodological issues and suggestions for future research are given in the general discussion…
