Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2026
Revised and Neuroimaging-Compatible Versions of the Dual Task Screen
Published on: October 5, 2020
Cognitive demand of human sensorimotor performance during an extended space mission: a dual-task study
Otmar Bock1, Cornelia Weigelt, Jacob J Bloomberg
1Institute of Physiology and Anatomy, German Sport University, 50927 Cologne, Germany. bock@dshs-koeln.de
Introduction:
Two previous single-case studies found that the dual-task costs of manual tracking plus memory search increased during a space mission, and concluded that sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may be related to cognitive overload. Since dual-task costs were insensitive to the difficulty of memory search, the authors argued that the overload may reflect stress-related problems of multitasking, rather than a scarcity of specific cognitive resources. Here we expand the available database and compare different types of concurrent task.
Methods:
Three subjects were repeatedly tested before, during, and after an extended mission on the International Space Station (ISS). They performed an unstable tracking task and four reaction-time tasks, both separately and concurrently. Inflight data could only be obtained during later parts of the mission.
Results:
The tracking error increased from pre- to in flight by a factor of about 2, both under single- and dual-task conditions. The dual-task costs with a reaction-time task requiring rhythm production was 2.4 times higher than with a reaction-time task requiring visuo-spatial transformations, and 8 times higher than with a regular choice reaction-time task.
Conclusions:
Long-term sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may reflect not only stress, but also a scarcity of resources related to complex motor programming; possibly those resources are tied up by sensorimotor adaptation to the space environment.
