Processing Resources and Timesharing Performance,
Abstract
A central issue in the human performance literature concerns the nature of information processing limitations within the human system. A number of major theoretical positions that address the issue have held that processing restrictions arise primarily from structural limits in the system (e.g.3 Broadbent, 1958) or from the unavailability of some type of capacity or resource that is necessary to process information (e.g., Knowles, 1963; Kanneman, 1973). Regardless of the specific basis that is offered for limitations within the processing system, most theories have held that the source of processing%restrictions is unitary (i.e., a single perceptual channel or a single undifferentiated pool of resources). Such unitary capacity theories provide little basis to predict differences in the efficiency of timesharing performance between different combinations of tasks, since all tasks draw on the same limited capacity source. If the demands of a task combination exceed the processing capacity of the system, degraded performance will result, regardless of the specific source (e.g., central processing, motor output) of the load.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA289542
Entities
People
- F. T. Eggemeier
- Michael A. Stadler
Organizations
- Wright State University