The association of tasks (dual-task) has functional importance in daily activities; people usually have to learn new tasks. It is unclear whether tasks should be trained isolated or associated. This experiment aimed at verifying whether the best dual-task performance occurs after training isolated or associated tasks. Twenty volunteers underwent initial assessment, training, and final assessment; ten trained associated tasks (AT) and the others trained tasks separately (IT). The motor task consisted of alternating steps between the ground and a platform. The visual task measured the ability to name two visual stimuli displayed on a computer screen (bus or truck). The number of step alternations per second in the absence and presence of the visual task, and the number of errors in the visual task in the absence and presence of the motor task, were counted and statistically analysed. The AT group showed both motor (initial 1.10 alternations/s, final 1.25 alternations/s; p=0.028) and visual (initial 9.3 errors, final 6.9 errors; p=0.039) improvement in performance. The same did not occur to the IT group: motor improvement did not reach significance level, probably due to the higher variability in the number of step alternations per second during training, and no visual improvement was shown (p=0.844). It may thus be said that the kind of training interfered on performance. The best performance occurred after dual-task training.
Attention; Motor activity; Task performance and analysis; Visual perception
