Practice mediates bidirectional interference (Whitfield & Holdosh, 2021)

Introduction: The current study examined the extent to which practice amount mediates dual-task interference patterns associated with concurrent performance of a novel speech task and attention-demanding visuomotor task.

Method: A Sequential Nonword Repetition Task was used to examine the effect of practice on interference associated with concurrent performance of a Visuomotor Pursuit Task. Twenty-five young adult participants were assigned to either an Extended Practice Group or a Limited Practice Group and performed a novel Sequential Nonword Repetition Task in isolation and while performing a concurrent visuomotor pursuit rotor task.

Results: Participants in the Limited Practice Group who were afforded a limited amount of practice exhibited dual-task interference (i.e., dual-task performance reductions) for both the speech and visuomotor tasks (i.e., bidirectional dual-task interference). Conversely, participants in the Extended Practice Group who were afforded extended practice exhibited little-to-no observable dual-task interference on the nonword repetition task.

Conclusion: Data from the current investigation suggest that the amount of initial practice mediates the degree of dual-task interference observed when a novel speech production task is performed with an attention-demanding Visuomotor Pursuit Task.

Supplemental Material S1. This is a short video example of the custom visuomotor pursuit rotor task. The percent time-on-target for this trial was 76.8%. Note that the trial duration is only 8 seconds, whereas the trial durations in the study were 30 seconds.

Whitfield, J. A., & Holdosh, S. R. (2021). Practice mediates bidirectional dual-task interference when performing a novel sequential nonword repetition task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00605