Man multitasking is a clear human ability to perform more than one task, or activity, in a short time (1 hour). An example of multitasking is taking a phone call while typing an email and reading a book. Multitasking can lead to time wasted due to the switching of the human context and seems to cause more errors due to inadequate attention. Research has shown that it is impossible to focus on more than one task at a time. However, if one is competent in one of the tasks, it is possible to perform these tasks.
Video Human multitasking
Etimologi
The first published use of the word "multitask" appears in an IBM paper describing the capabilities of the IBM/360 System in 1965. This term has since been applied to human tasks.
Maps Human multitasking
Research
Since the 1960s, psychologists have experimented on the nature and limits of human multitasking. The simplest experimental design used to investigate human multitasking is the so-called psychological refractory period effect. Here, people are asked to make separate responses to each of the two stimuli presented close together in time. A very common finding is a slowing response to a second emerging stimulus.
Researchers have long suggested that there appears to be processing barriers that prevent the brain from working on certain key aspects of both tasks at the same time (eg, (Gladstones, Regan & Lee 1989) (Pashler 1994)). Many researchers believe that cognitive functioning that is subject to the most severe form of bottlenecking is planning action and retrieving information from memory. Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell has gone a step further to describe multitasking as "a mythical activity in which believers can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one". On the other hand, there is good evidence that one can monitor many perceptual streams at the same time, and perform perceptual and motor functions at the same time.
Others have been researching multitasking in certain domains, such as learning. Mayer and Moreno studied the phenomenon of cognitive load in multimedia learning and concluded that it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn new information while engaging in multitasking. Junco and Cotten examined how multitasking affects academic success and found that students involved in high-level multitasking reported significant problems with their academic work. A more recent study on the effect of multitasking on academic performance found that using Facebook and text messaging while learning was associated negatively with student grades, while online search and email did not.
Role of the brain
Because the brain can not fully focus while performing many tasks, people take longer to complete the task and tend to experience errors. When people try to accomplish many tasks at once, "or [alternate] rapidly between them, the error increases, and it takes longer - often twice or more - to finish the job than if they finish in sequence," Meyer said. This is largely because "the brain is forced to restart and refocus". A study by Meyer and David Kieras found that while between each exchange, the brain made no progress whatsoever. Therefore, multitasking people not only perform any tasks that are less appropriate, but lose time in the process.
According to a study by Jordan Grafman, head of the cognitive neuroscience department at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, "the anterior part [of the brain] allows [someone] to leave something when it is incomplete and return to the same place and proceed from there," while Brodmann Area 10, part of the frontal lobe of the brain, is important for building and achieving long-term goals. Focuses on several different tasks while forcing the brain to process all of its anterior activity. Although the brain is complex and can perform many tasks, it can not be multitask well.
Another study by Renà © à © Marois, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University, found that the brain exhibits a "response choice barrier" when asked to perform multiple tasks at once. The brain then has to decide which activity is the most important, so it takes more time. Psychologist David Meyer of the University of Michigan claims that, instead of "bottleneck," the brain experiences "adaptive executive control" which places priority on each activity. This point of view is different in that while congestion seeks to force many thoughts through the brain at once, executive controls that adaptively prioritize the task of maintaining semblance of regularity. The brain better understands this sequence and, like a psychologist like Dr. Meyer believes, can, therefore, be trained for multitask. It is not known exactly how the brain processes the input and reacts to overstimulation.
Several studies have shown that the human brain can be trained for multitask. A study published in Child Development by Monica Luciana, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, found that the brain's ability to categorize competing information continues to grow until the age of sixteen and seventeen. A study by Vanderbilt University found that multitasking is largely limited by "the speed with which our prefrontal cortex information processes." Paul E. Dux, co-author of the study, believes that this process can become faster through proper training. The study trained seven people to perform two simple tasks, separately or together and perform brain scans of the participants. Individual multitasking is bad at first but, by training, is capable of performing a task simultaneously. The brain scan of the participants shows that the prefrontal cortex accelerates its ability to process information, allowing individuals to multitask more efficiently. However, this study also shows that the brain is unable to perform many tasks at once, even after extensive training. This study further shows that, while the brain can become proficient in processing and responding to certain information, it can not really do many tasks.
People have limited ability to store information, which worsens as the amount of information increases. It is for this reason that people change information to make it easier to remember, such as separating ten-digit phone numbers into three smaller groups or dividing the alphabet into sets of three to five letters. George Miller, a former psychologist at Harvard University, believes the human brain's central capacity limit is around "the number seven, plus or minus two." This illustrative example is a test in which one has to repeat the number being read. While two or three digits are easy to replicate, fifteen numbers become more difficult. That person, on average, will repeat the seven correctly. The brain is only able to store a limited amount of information in their short-term memory.
Laboratory-based multi-tasking studies show that one of the motivations for switching between tasks is to increase the time spent on tasks that generate the most rewards (Payne, Duggan & Neth, 2007). These rewards can be progress toward the overall goal of the task, or it can only be an opportunity to pursue more exciting or fun activities. Payne, Duggan and Neth (2007) found that the decision to switch tasks reflects either the rewards provided by the current task or the availability of suitable opportunities to switch (ie sub-goal completion). A French fMRI study published in 2010 showed early support for the hypothesis that the brain can pursue at most two goals simultaneously, one for each frontal lobe (which has a goal-oriented area).
Gender differences
Although the idea that women are better multitaskers than men has been popular in the media as well as in conventional thinking, there is little data available to support the claims of real sex differences. Most studies that show gender differences tend to find that the differences are small and inconsistent.
A study by psychologist Keith Laws is widely reported in the media to provide the first evidence of female multitasking superiority, although strongly focused on the sample (240 people who responded to online advertising and in West Yorkshire, England, averaged 27 years, and controlled samples only for gender and age, and not for cultural and educational background).
In another study, women were found to do little better in coordinating the primary tests with secondary tests, supporting the notion that women are better in multitasking. However, the authors conclude their tests may not reflect real-life multitasking and more research is needed.
In contrast, a Swedish study found that men outperform women in dealing with multiple tasks simultaneously, with performance gaps that correlate with a woman's menstrual cycle.
Recently, a new brain connectivity study from Penn Medicine, funded partially by the National Institutes of Mental Health, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds major differences in men and women's neural networks that lead researchers to believe in popular beliefs that sex plays a role in multitasking skills. "On average, men are better at learning and doing a task in hand, like cycling or navigating directions, while women have superior memory and social cognition skills, making them more equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that work for groups. The full text of the study can be found on the PNAS website. However, this research has been heavily criticized for the visible differences, can easily be caused by increased head movements. In addition, the relationship between DTI data and behavioral performance is speculative. Importantly, this study does not contain evidence of superiority in multitasking in women.
In the study of Szalai et al. has calculated the structural (ie anatomical) connections of 96 data subjects from a large NIH-funded project, the Human Connectome Project, and it shows that in some deep Graph-theoretical parameters, women's structural connections are significantly more connected than men. For example, the female connectome has more edges, a higher minimum bipartite width, larger eigengap, a larger minimum vertex cover than a male. Minimum bipartition width (or minimum minimum balance) is a measure of the quality of the renowned multistage computer interconnect network; it describes possible bottlenecks in network communications: The higher this value, the better is the network because fewer congestion can exist. Larger Eigengap shows that female connectors have better expander graphs than male connectors. A better developed property, a higher minimum bipartite width and a larger minimum vertex cover show superiority in network connectivity in the case of female brain graphs.
Although not many recent studies have evidence of the superiority of female multitasking, there is an attempt to produce an evolutionary explanation for popular belief. In 1992 Silverman and Eals created a hypothesis derived from the Hunter-Gatherer Hypothesis. Their hypothesis says that natural selection prefers hunting-related skills and results in differences in task performance for gender. Men focus on one task, hunt, while women gather and care for children at home. The idea is that over time there are strong choices for women who can perform many tasks. We no longer have a rigid division of labor, but natural selection in primitive societies is thought to have made modern women superior multitaskers.
Ongoing partial concern
Author Steven Berlin Johnson explains one type of multitasking: "Usually involves scratching incoming data surfaces, selecting relevant details, and moving to the next stream, you notice, but only partially that allows you to cast a wider net but also risk making you not really studying fish. "Multimedia pioneer Linda Stone coined the term" sustained, partial concern "for this kind of processing. Continuous partial concern is multitasking where things are not studied in depth.
Rapidly improving technology drives multitasking because it promotes multiple input sources at any given time. Instead of exchanging old equipment such as TV, print, and music, for new equipment such as computers, the internet and video games, children and teenagers combine media forms and continually improve input sources. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 1999 only 16 percent of time was spent using media such as internet, television, video games, telephone, text messaging, or email combined. In 2005, 26 percent of the time these media were shared. This simultaneous increase in media usage reduces the amount of attention paid to each device. In 2005 it was found that 82 percent of American youths use the Internet in seventh grade at school. A 2005 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that, while media usage continued at 6.5 hours per day, Americans aged 8 to 18 were clustered about 8.5 hours from media to day - their day because of multitasking. Surveys show that a quarter to a third of participants have more than one "most of the time" input while watching television, listening to music, or reading. The Harvard Business Review 2007 presents Linda Stone's idea of ​​"partial continuous attention," or, "constantly looking for opportunities and staying on top of contacts, events, and activities in an effort not to miss anything". Because technology provides more distractions, attention is spread among thinner tasks.
A common example is the lack of attention to detail because multitasking is seen when people talk on the phone while driving. One study found that an accident was four times more likely when using a cell phone while driving. Other studies compared reaction times for experienced drivers during a number of tasks, and found that subjects reacted more slowly to brake lights and stopped marks during phone conversations than during other simultaneous tasks. A 2006 study showed that drivers talking on cell phones were more involved in rear-end collisions and slowed more slowly than drunk drivers. When speaking, people should draw their attention out of the way to formulate responses. Because the brain can not focus on two input sources at a time, driving and hearing or speaking, the constantly changing inputs provided by the mobile phone distract the brain and increase the likelihood of an accident.
Supertasker
In 2010, a scientific study found that a small percentage of the population seemed much better in multitasking than others, and these people were later labeled "supertaskers". In 2015, a follow-up study was found examining the brain activity of these individuals.
Popular comments on practical multitasking
Barry Schwartz has noted that, given the media-rich landscape of the Internet age, it is tempting to get into the habit of staying in a sea of ​​constant information with too many choices, which has been noted to have a negative effect on human happiness..
Youth observers in modern society often comment on the seemingly advanced multitasking capabilities of the youngest generation of people (Generation Y and Generation Z). While it is true that contemporary researchers found that youth in today's world exhibit high levels of multitasking, most scholars believe that Generation Net members are no better in multitasking than older generation members. However, recent studies by Bardhi, Rohm, and Sultan argue that Generation Y gets better in multitasking media. This is evidenced by the fact that they gain control over deciding which messages they notice or not. Nevertheless, while there is considerable evidence showing the negative effects of multitasking on cognitive tasks, there is no evidence to suggest that multitasking has a positive or neutral effect on these tasks.
Many research, literature, articles and consulting firms around the world, including the latest from Louisiana State University psychology Professor Emily Elliott stress the fact that multitasking in any form reduces productivity and/or increases the error rate, resulting in unnecessary frustration.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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