Multiple Resources, Task-Hemispheric Integrity, and Individual Differences in Time-Sharing

Abstract

Forty subjects performed four information processing tasks. Three aspects of the data were examined: individual differences in time-sharing efficiency; task-related differences in timesharing efficiency; and interaction of processing codes and response hands. Results showed little concrete evidence for a general time-sharing ability; supported a multiple resource concept of attention; and favored a condition of “task-hemispheric integrity” in which the hemisphere of task processing (spatial or verbal) is the same one controlling the task responding hand (left vs. right). The implications of these results to operator performance in complex systems are discussed.