Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 1997 Jan;104(1):3-65.
doi: 10.1037/0033-295x.104.1.3.

A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms

D E Meyer  1 , D E Kieras
Affiliations
Review

A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms

D E Meyer et al. Psychol Rev. 1997 Jan.

Abstract

A new theoretical framework, executive-process interactive control (EPIC), is introduced for characterizing human performance of concurrent perceptual-motor and cognitive tasks. On the basis of EPIC, computational models may be formulated to simulate multiple-task performance under a variety of circumstances. These models account well for reaction-time data from representative situations such as the psychological refractory-period procedure. EPIC's goodness of fit supports several key conclusions: (a) At a cognitive level, people can apply distinct sets of production rules simultaneously for executing the procedures of multiple tasks; (b) people's capacity to process information at "peripheral" perceptual-motor levels is limited; (c) to cope with such limits and to satisfy task priorities, flexible scheduling strategies are used; and (d) these strategies are mediated by executive cognitive processes that coordinate concurrent tasks adaptively.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
Association 3
twitter 2