A psychological refractory period in access to visual short-term memory and the deployment of visual-spatial attention: multitasking processing deficits revealed by event-related potentials.

Full Abstract

In this psychological refractory period (PRP) experiment, a tone (T1) was presented, followed by a visual target (T2) embedded in a bilateral display, and a speeded response was required for each target. The T1-T2 stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 300, 650, or 1000 ms. Mean response time to T2 increased as SOA was reduced, replicating the well-known PRP effect. Importantly, the N2pc component of the event-related potential was progressively attenuated as SOA was reduced, and the onset latency of the sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) that follows the N2pc was progressively lengthened. Conditional analysis based on Task1 difficulty corroborated the analyses based on effects of SOA. The results suggest that central processing leading to the PRP effect interferes with the deployment of visual-spatial attention (as indexed by the N2pc) and delays encoding into visual short-term memory (as indexed by the SPCN onset latency).

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Brisson, Benoit (B); Jolicoeur, Pierre (P);

Affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. benoit.brisson(-atsign-)umontreal.ca

Journal and publication information

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

Journal: Psychophysiology (Psychophysiology), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Mar; vol 44 (issue 2) : pp 323-33

Dates: Created 2007/03/08; Completed 2007/05/29;

PMID: 17343714, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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.

Adult
Attention - physiology
Auditory Perception - physiology
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Humans

Male
Memory, Short-Term - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Refractory Period, Psychological - physiology
Space Perception - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.