In a divided attention task, a second event occurs while focusing on a primary detail. What effect is most likely on recall of the primary detail?

In a divided attention task, a second event occurs while focusing on a primary detail. What effect is most likely on recall of the primary detail?

• A. Increased recall.
• B. Decreased recall due to cognitive load.
• C. Unchanged recall.
• D. Recall becomes more detailed.

Answer: (B)

When attention is divided, cognitive resources are spread across tasks, so encoding of the primary detail takes a hit. The secondary event competes for working-memory and attentional resources, leaving less processing devoted to the primary detail. As a result, the memory trace for that detail is weaker, and recall later on is reduced. This is the hallmark of dual-task interference: adding a second task increases cognitive load and typically harms memory for the first task. The other outcomes would require either no impact or even extra processing, which isn’t supported by how limited attentional capacity works in real-time encoding.

When attention is divided, cognitive resources are spread across tasks, so encoding of the primary detail takes a hit. The secondary event competes for working-memory and attentional resources, leaving less processing devoted to the primary detail. As a result, the memory trace for that detail is weaker, and recall later on is reduced. This is the hallmark of dual-task interference: adding a second task increases cognitive load and typically harms memory for the first task. The other outcomes would require either no impact or even extra processing, which isn’t supported by how limited attentional capacity works in real-time encoding.