Redundancy gains in simple responses and go/no-go tasks

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Information Processing

Background:

• Divided-attention tasks involve processing multiple stimuli.
• The redundant-signals effect (RSE) shows faster responses to simultaneous targets compared to single targets.
• Existing models include serial, parallel, and coactivation frameworks.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate redundancy gains in simple and go/no-go responses.
• Examine auditory-visual stimuli with onset asynchrony.
• Test the explanatory power of coactivation and serial models.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments using simple and go/no-go response tasks.
• Stimuli included auditory tones and visual Gabor patches with varying thresholds and onset asynchrony.
• Response times were analyzed to assess redundancy gains.

Main Results:

• Experiment 1: Response times in both simple and go/no-go tasks were explained by a coactivation model with linear superposition.
• Experiment 2: Redundancy gains were consistent with coactivation models, but evidence accumulation speeds differed between tasks.
• One participant's data supported a serial self-terminating model.

Conclusions:

• Coactivation models effectively explain redundancy gains in simple and go/no-go tasks with asynchronous stimuli.
• Evidence accumulation may occur at different rates across sensory channels and task complexities.
• While coactivation is generally supported, individual differences may align with serial processing models.