Acquisition and transfer of attention allocation strategies in a multiple-task work environment

Payoff effects on strategy development and change were assessed in a synthetic work environment, SYNWORK1.

Many work settings require several tasks to be performed concurrently. It is important to know how the strategies used in performing the respective tasks vary with payoffs.

Sixty students performed four tasks in SYNWORK1, for which points are received for correct responses and lost for incorrect responses. Individual-task payoffs were varied between participants and were changed after 8 and 12 sessions to examine the effects of a previous strategy on development of a new strategy.

Participants were sensitive to initial payoffs and modified their strategies when payoffs changed. However, residual effects of prior payoffs were evident.

Payoffs for multiple-task environments need to be explicit, and practice should be provided for strategy development. When payoffs change, strategies adopted reflect current and previous payoffs.

The findings can be applied to the design of payoff schedules for multiple-task environments.