<p class="first" id="d451540e69">Participants can optimize encoding of an immediate
verbal memory test for item or
for order information, or they can try to be ready for either type of test. Dividing
encoding between both kinds of information, however, comes at a cost. Recently, it
has been shown that the cost is more severe for order information compared to item
information (Guitard et al., 2022). Here, for the first time, we evaluated which factor
can better account for this asymmetry by contrasting two hypotheses. According to
a rate hypothesis, divided attention affects the rate of encoding more for order than
for items. According to an alternative, asymptote hypothesis, divided attention does
not affect the rates but diminishes the endpoint, or asymptotic level, of order encoding
more than item encoding. In three experiments to distinguish these hypotheses, participants
prepared for an item fragment completion test, an order reconstruction test, or both
types of tests, in trials with different durations of presentation. Overall, our results
were better accounted for by a model which assumes that dividing attention between
preparation for item and order testing affects the asymptote of encoding more for
order than for items, with no effects on the rates of order or item encoding compared
to preparation for a single test. The findings not only replicate our prior results,
but also demonstrate that the allocation of attention to item or order processing
can be disentangled from the time on task. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA,
all rights reserved).
</p>