Committee Chair

Clark, Amanda J.

Committee Member

Shelton, Jill; Ozbek, Irene Nichols, 1947-

Department

Dept. of Psychology

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Dual-task costs occur when attention is divided among two or more concurrent tasks. Most dual-task studies involve paradigms where participants complete two, concurrent cognitive tasks; in these studies, performance on one or both tasks are slower and/or less accurate. The goal of this study was to examine whether dual-task costs would exist when participants completed a cognitive task while walking and whether those costs would be greater when the cognitive task required a motor-based response or when the task was more difficult. Twenty-two college students completed four blocks of a visual search task while walking. The difficult and the manual blocks were associated with the greatest accuracy costs, but performance was slower in both the difficult and the verbal modality blocks. These findings indicate that dual-task costs do occur, even when one of the tasks is walking, and that costs are greatest when the concurrent task is especially difficult.

Acknowledgments

I would like to firstly thank my mentor, Dr. Amanda Clark, for showing me that I am capable of more than I ever imagined. You pushed me when necessary and you allowed for me to grow as a researcher and teacher. You have shown me what integrity looks like in research and I hope to follow in your footsteps. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am that you are my mentor. I would also like to thank Dr. Alex Zelin who first introduced me to the world of research. Had you not agreed to allow me in your lab, I don’t know where I would be! Also a big thank you to my committee members, Dr. Jill Shelton and Dr. Nicky Ozbek for your guidance and support through this journey. Finally, I would like to thank those who have helped me emotionally, with my research, or both: Aishani Eggenberger, Chelsea Wymer, Kaila Rogers, Melissa Materia, and Emily Halvorson.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2020

Subject

Attention; Distraction (Psychology); Perception

Keyword

attention; dual-tasking

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

ix, 41 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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