An Investigation of Time-Sharing Ability as a Factor in Complex Performance

Thirty-nine men were tested on a total of six tasks; performance was measured on each task presented individually and on two complex tasks made up of three-task subsets. A factor analysis performed on the resultant data revealed a factor that showed high loadings for two different monitoring tasks for complex performance but negligible loadings for these tasks for simple performance; separate, orthogonal factors were found for the two monitoring tasks when they were performed under simple-task conditions. The monitoring measures, thus, appear to possess properties that would be expected of measures of a time-sharing ability.