Grouping mechanisms in response preparation investigated with event-related brain potentials.

Preliminary information about responses facilitates performance, especially when the information can be grouped into stimulus-response sets, for example, into fingers belonging to the same hand. Here, we studied the mechanisms of supposedly fast and automatic exogenous as compared to slow and controlled endogenous grouping of same-hand fingers. As compared to endogenous cuing, exogenous cuing facilitated reaction times and induced larger amplitudes of the contingent negative variation, but did not show any advantage in amplitude or latency of the lateralized readiness potential or in the magnitude of current source density over the motor cortices.

Differential dynamics of spatial and non-spatial stimulus-response compatibility effects: a dual task LRP study.

Choice reaction times are shorter when stimulus and response features are compatible rather than incompatible. Recent studies revealed that spatial compatibility effects in Simon tasks are strongly attenuated when there is temporal overlap with a different high-priority task. In contrast, non-spatial variants of the Simon task appear to be unaffected by task overlap.

The impact of intervening tasks on response preparation.

Response preparation usually facilitates performance, but it may also interfere with other concurrent tasks. In this article, the authors used event-related brain potentials to study how intervening tasks affect response preparation. In 3 experiments, participants performed intervening tasks during the preparation of a precued hand choice response.

Localizing practice effects in dual-task performance.

Practice effects on dual-task processing are of interest in current research because they may reveal the scope and limits of parallel task processing. Here we used onsets of the lateralized readiness potential (LRP), a time marker for the termination of response selection, to assess processing changes after five consecutive dual-task sessions with three stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and priority on Task 1. Practice reduced reaction times in both tasks and the interference between tasks.

Time pressure effects on information processing in overlapping tasks: evidence from the lateralized readiness potential.

Information processing is impaired when two tasks are performed concurrently. The interference between the tasks is commonly attributed to structural bottlenecks or strategic scheduling of information processing. The present experiment investigated the effects of time pressure for the second of two responses on information processing in overlapping tasks by recording the lateralized readiness potential (LRP).