A comparison of the psychological refractory period and prioritized processing paradigms: Can the response-selection...

Four experiments examined whether well-established phenomena from the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm are also observed in the prioritized processing paradigm, as would be expected from a common description of the 2 paradigms with the response selection bottleneck (RSB) model. Consistent with a generalization of the RSB model to the prioritized processing paradigm, Experiments 1 and 2 showed that this paradigm yields effects of SOA and stimulus discriminability analogous to those observed in the PRP paradigm. In Experiments 3 and 4, however, overall RTs and effect sizes differed between the PRP and prioritized processing paradigms in ways that are difficult to explain within the RSB model. Understanding the differences between these 2 paradigms offers considerable promise as a way to extend the RSB model beyond the domain of the PRP paradigm and to generalize our understanding of multitasking interference.