A CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYTIC STUDY OF TIME-SHARING PERFORMANCE AND COGNITIVE-ABILITIES

Previous failures to identify a general time-sharing (TS) ability from factor analyses of multiple task performance have been attributed in part to the uninformed use of exploratory procedures, which may obscure, rather than confirm, the presence of a TS factor. In the present study, 81 male subjects performed four information-processing tasks and six dual task combinations, and completed a battery of psychometric ability tests selected to identify three factors from the Cattell-Horn model (gf,gc, and gs). Confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analyses of the information-processing task variables were not supportive of a general TS factor. However, similar to Jennings and Chiles' (1977) results, the analyses did identify a TS factor specific to combinations that included a visual monitoring task. The TS factor was unrelated to the psychometric ability factors. Future investigations of TS performance should focus on the identification of process-specific TS abilities and possible relationships among them. © 1990.