Determinants of Central Processing Order in Psychological Refractory Period Paradigms: Central Arrival Times,Detection Times,or Preparation?

Three psychological refractory period (PRP) experiments were conducted to assess the effect of central arrival times at the bottleneck on task order scheduling. In Experiment 1, a visual first task (plus–minus symbol discrimination) was combined with an auditory second task (left–right tone judgement) in a standard PRP paradigm with constant task order. In Experiment 2, the order of the tasks varied unpredictably. In Experiment 3, visual–auditory dual-task trials were randomly mixed with single-task trials. To dissociate central arrival times from stimulus detection times, the perceptual stage of the visual task was extended using stimulus degradation. Most importantly, no evidence for a first-come, first-served principle at the central bottleneck was found with the employed paradigms. Instead, the results indicated that preparation (Experiment 1) and the detection times of the stimuli (Experiments 2 and 3) were the main determinants of central processing order in the present study. In the light of previous research, the results indicate that central processing order can be influenced by various factors. The interplay between these factors seems to depend highly on the conditions and requirements of the employed experimental paradigm.