The illusion of multitasking boosts performance

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"Multitasking is often a matter of perception or can even be thought of as an illusion," explains researcher Shalena Srna of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. "Regardless of whether people actually engage in a single task or , making them perceive this activity as multitasking is beneficial to ."

Evidence suggests that humans are actually incapable of paying attention to multiple tasks at the same time—we may think that we're multitasking, but we're actually switching back and forth between tasks.



In a lab-based study, 162 participants watched and transcribed an educational video from Animal Planet. Half of the participants believed they'd be completing two tasks, a learning task and a transcribing task; the other half believed they'd be completing a single task testing their learning and writing abilities. In other words, both groups completed the exact same activities, the only difference was their belief about how many tasks were completing at one time.





But why would perceiving an activity as multitasking enhance performance? Srna and colleagues hypothesized that it might come down to participants' engagement in the tasks.

To test this, the researchers conducted lab-based version of the word study, using eye-tracking technology to measure participants' pupil dilation as they worked. Not only did in the multitasking condition submit a greater number of correct words, they also showed greater average pupil dilation during the activity, suggesting they were exerting more mental effort to stay engaged.  Although the multitaskers did switch more often between the puzzles, this did not appear to hamper their performance.

To be clear, these findings do not suggest that we should all start multitasking to improve our performance. Rather, the research indicates that for a given activity, it's the belief that we're multitasking that can influence how well we do.

"In today's society, we constantly feel like we are juggling different activities to meet the demands on our time, both at work and at home. So it feels like multitasking is everywhere," says Srna. "We find that multitasking is often a matter of perception that helps, rather than harms, engagement and performance. Thus, when we engage in a given activity, construing it as multitasking could help us."

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More information: Shalena Srna et al, The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance, Psychological Science (2018). DOI: 10.1177/0956797618801013
Journal information: Psychological Science

Citation: The illusion of multitasking boosts performance (2018, November 13) retrieved 17 July 2019 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-illusion-multitasking-boosts.html

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