Multiple-Task and Individual Differences

“Psychologists became interested in attention, including the notions of ‘span of attention’, ‘range of attention’, and ‘division of attention’.” (Damos, 1991)

In the book, Multiple-Task Performance edited by Diane L. Damos, the idea of “timesharing activities” which was another term for “multi-tasking” came up in differential psychology where the factors in individual differences and the division of attention are great factors that contribute to the abilities in “timesharing”.

Accordingly, the study started around the beginning of World War I until the beginning of World War II. All these studies were then used for analyzation in the timesharing ability.

“Two reasons: (1) It is a partially efficient technique for partialling single-task scores from dual-task measures (Ackerman and Wickens, 1982); and (2) it easily accommodates the large numbers of tasks and task combinations required for investigating timesharing as a general ability.” (Damos, 1991)

During the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, there were many studies performed to test out this early knowledge of timesharing ability. A study conducted by Sharp (1899) conducted a test on 7 individuals in which 6 major classes of tests were used. These tests were created differently, each targeting a person’s range of attention and focus. Sharp then noted that when they switch tasks, their performance in the previous task would either decrease or have some differences. However, his study had several faults due to the way it was conducted. One of the failures includes the lack of baseline in the study.

Another study conducted by McQueen (1917) included stimuli for the tasks, and a larger sample space. When he concluded that because there is no “power of distribution,” because the single-task performance corresponding dual-task performance created intercorrelations that weren’t too high, I think the conclusion was flawed. The sample space was 40 schoolchildren, and they face a higher amount of fatigue in the duration of the study. Arguably, McQueen was still one of the most impressive studies that targeted on the study of individual differences and dual-task performance.

Citation: Diane, D. (1991). Multiple-Task Performance. London, UK: Burgess Science Press.

In my most recent multi-tasking adventure, I started creating to-do lists, and organizing what I need to complete by the day. Then I go on and put related works together, so that when I work on those tasks, they can complement on each other. For example, when I read textbooks, I would do so along with listening to the audio book version and writing about it at the same time. By doing so, this would enhance my performance in understanding the material.