multitasking - Michael Misha on Diigo

31 Jul 09

"We found that a key limitation to efficient multitasking is the speed with which our prefrontal cortex processes information, and that this speed can be drastically increased through training and practice,”
“Specifically, we found that with training, the 'thinking' regions of our brain become very fast at doing each task, thereby quickly freeing them up to take on other tasks."
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- To understand what was occurring in the brain when multitasking efficiency improved, the researchers trained seven people daily for two weeks on two simple tasks — selecting an appropriate finger response to different images, and selecting an appropriate vocal response (syllables) to the presentation of different sounds. The tasks were done either separately or together (multitasking situation)
- "Our results imply that the fundamental reason we are lousy multitaskers is because our brains process each task slowly, creating a bottleneck at the central stage of decision making," René Marois, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University and co-author of the study, said. “Practice enables our brain to process each task more quickly through this bottleneck, speeding up performance overall.”
- "Our findings also suggest that, even after extensive practice, our brain does not really do two tasks at once,” Dux said. “It is still processing one task at a time, but it does it so fast it gives us the illusion we are doing two tasks simultaneously."

26 Apr 09

Multitasking In The Car: Just Like Drunken Driving : NPR

Multitasking In The Car: Just Like Drunken Driving

www.npr.org/...story.php - Preview

Multitasking Research

01 Apr 09

Activation Of The Prefrontal Cortex Improves Working Memory

www.sciencedaily.com/...090401134608.htm - Preview

Working Memory Intelligence Neuroscience Research Multitasking

31 Mar 09

Computer Simulations Explain The Limitations Of Working Memory

www.sciencedaily.com/...090331112639.htm - Preview

Research Working Memory Multitasking Cognitive Load

With their model brain, the team was able to discover why the working memory is only capable of retaining between two and seven different pictures simultaneously. As the working memory load rises, the active neurons in the parietal lobe increasingly inhibit the activity of surrounding cells. The inhibition of the inter-neuronal impulses eventually becomes so strong that it prevents the storage of additional visual input, although it can be partly offset through the greater stimulation of the frontal lobes. This leads the researchers to suggest in their article that the frontal lobes might be able to regulate the memory capacity of the parietal lobes.
The working memory is a bottleneck for the human brain's capacity to process information. These results give us fresh insight into what the bottleneck consists of."

Police With Higher Multitasking Abilities Less Likely To Shoot Unarmed Persons

www.sciencedaily.com/...090330123223.htm - Preview

Research Multitasking Real World

29 Mar 09

DualTask.org

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Multitasking Research Games

28 Mar 09

ScienceDirect - Acta Psychologica : The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control

www.sciencedirect.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/science - Preview

Research Multitasking Attention Video Games

ScienceDirect - Neuropsychologia : The development of attention skills in action video game players

www.sciencedirect.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/science - Preview

Research Multitasking Attention Video Games

ScienceDirect - Cognition : Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: the case of action video game players

www.sciencedirect.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/science - Preview

Research Multitasking Video Games Attention

26 Mar 09

Viewers Can Learn A Lot About Objects In Their Field Of Vision, Even Without Paying Attention

www.sciencedaily.com/...090325150619.htm - Preview

Multitasking Research Attention Vision

24 Mar 09

PsycARTICLES - Can Training in a Real-Time Strategy Video Game Attenuate Cognitive Decline in Older Adults?

psycnet.apa.org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/...765.html - Preview

Video Games Multitasking Task Switching Research

Research on cognitive training (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly [ACTIVE]) in older adults by Ball and colleagues (Ball et al., 2002) has found that if specific cognitive skills are trained separately—such as memory, attention, and problem solving—trainees improve in the particular skill on which they are trained. Yet, there is no transfer of training to the other two untrained cognitive skills, particularly reasoning or memory.1Footnote 1 For an exception, see Willis et al. (2006), in which booster training on speed of processing improved performance on everyday speed of processing, but processing speed was not considered to be an executive control process.
hide footnote Recently, the ACTIVE study group (Willis et al., 2006) found that training in reasoning transfers to self-reported instrumental activities of daily living. This transfer of training is not observed in speed of processing or memory training.
Kramer and colleagues (Bherer et al., 2005; Erickson et al., 2007; Kramer et al., 1995; Kramer et al., 1999) have found that variable priority training of attentional control can improve performance on dual tasks and transfer to untrained dual-task conditions. Variable priority training entails the requirement to rapidly shift priorities among concurrently performed tasks or task components along with the provision of individualized adaptive performance feedback.
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- Typically, training in these relatively simple first-generation arcade-type video games (such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Super Tetris) seems to enhance performance in response time (RT), but not in processes of executive control, such as that measured by Stroop, Trails-B or working memory paradigms (Clark, Lanphear, & Riddick, 1987; Dustman, Emmerson, Steinhaus, Shearer, & Dustman, 1992; Goldstein et al., 1997)
- Research on younger adults has shown that training on complex video games, and more specifically games referred to as first-person shooters that stress rapid responding to fast-paced display changes, not only transfers to a wide variety of perceptual and attentional skills such as useful field of view, attentional blink, multiple-object tracking, and subitizing (Green & Bavelier, 2006, 2003), but also to real-world complex skills such as flight performance (Gopher, Weil, & Bareket, 1994).
- Task switching
- If the background was blue, participants used one hand to report as quickly as possible whether the letter was high (the X key) or low (the Z key). If the background was pink, participants used their other hand to report as quickly as possible whether the number was odd (the N key) or even (the M key).
- Switch costs were calculated by subtracting the RT for nonswitch trials from the RT for switch trials.
- Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices
- The task of the participant was to find the missing piece that completed the pattern.
- The primary measure for this task was the proportion of items correctly completed compared with the items attempted.
- Attentional Blink
- Green and Bavelier (2003) found improved detection of the X following video game training, with the largest training advantage when the X occurred three, four, five, or six letters after the first target, so we used these lags between the white letter and the X (with an equal number of trials for each).
- Task Switching
- p = .01, η2 = .17. Therefore, video game training had a beneficial effect on the ability to quickly switch between two tasks, particularly after 23.5 hr of training.
- Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices
- p < .01, η2 = .19
- Therefore, strategy video game training significantly improved reasoning abilities over time, particularly after 23.5 hr of training.
- It is interesting that benefits of video game training were observed in tasks in which one had to juggle or switch from one item to another in the working memory (N-back task), but not in the capacity of working memory per se (operation span task)
- It would be of interest to determine whether increasing the hours of training would induce transfer to other tasks of executive control or enhance the strength of the transfer effects.
- It is known that training in which different subtasks are individually emphasized in the context of the whole task (variable priority training) improves performance (and potentially transfers) more than training that emphasizes performance in the whole task (Gopher et al., 1994; Kramer et al., 1995, 1999).

23 Mar 09

Brain Wave Patterns Can Predict Blunders, New Study Finds

www.sciencedaily.com/...090323122439.htm - Preview

Research Attention Multitasking

PsycARTICLES - Concurrent Working Memory Load Can Facilitate Selective Attention: Evidence for Specialized Load

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Research Multitasking Cognitive Load Dual Processing

People have the remarkable ability to perform more than one task at a time. However, multitasking comes with a cost (Kahneman, 1973; Kahneman, Beatty, & Pollack, 1967; Pashler & Johnston, 1989), and moreover, some tasks are harder to combine than others.
For example, de Fockert, Rees, Frith, and Lavie (2001) showed that a concurrent working memory load increased distractor interference, making people slower to respond to targets.
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- This selective attention task was paired with one of two working memory load conditions—high load (memorizing a randomly ordered digit sequence) and low load (memorizing a fixed order digit sequence, e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4). Higher working memory load resulted in greater interference from incongruent distractor faces.
- De Fockert et al. argued that a high concurrent working memory load consumes the cognitive resources needed to actively maintain stimulus processing priorities, resulting in greater distractor interference in selective attention tasks.
- If early processes such as perceptual processes are loaded, for example, by adding multiple distractors to a display or by increasing processing requirements from one feature (e.g., color) to a conjunction of two features (e.g., color and shape), fewer resources become available for distractors, thus resulting in a decrease in distractor interference (Lavie, 1995; Lavie et al., 2004). However, load theory predicts an increase in distractor interference if a load is imposed on active control processes, such as those cognitive processes involved in working memory or task switching. The de Fockert et al. (2001) study demonstrated increased distractor interference under concurrent working memory load.
- However, there are different types of working memory that might be independent of each other. For example, research that examined the effects of working memory load on visual search found that the efficiency of visual search was impaired when spatial working memory or executive control processes were loaded but not when object working memory was loaded (Han & Kim, 2004; Oh & Kim, 2004; Woodman & Luck, 2004; Woodman, Vogel, & Luck, 2001). Logan (1978, 1979) also demonstrated that maintaining verbal items in working memory did not interfere with visual search efficiency. These results suggest that working memory and visual search do not interfere with each other if the type of attention required for the working memory task, such as maintaining a set of colors or verbal stimuli, draws on separate mechanisms than those required for efficient visual search. Concurrent spatial working memory interfered with visual search because both tasks involve spatial operations (Oh & Kim, 2004; Woodman & Luck, 2004)
- Resource theory explains the variability of performance as a function of the amount of internal input invested in each task. Given the limited capacity of attention or mental resources within a cognitive or perceptual mechanism, performance is impaired when the processing resource demand is greater than the capacity of a system. One of the major questions asked about resources is whether there is a central, unitary pool of resources or there are multiple pools of resources. This question is essential for understanding which types of tasks compete with each other and which do not.
- As evidence for multiple resources, dual-task interference between two concurrent tasks was dramatically reduced when response modalities, stimulus modalities, or mental imagery codes used in two tasks did not overlap with each other (Allport, 1980; Allport, Antonis, & Reynolds, 1972; Brooks, 1968; Meyer & Kieras, 1997; Treisman & Davies, 1973; Wickens, 1976, 1980). For example, Brooks (1968) found that vocal responses interfered more with recall of a sentence than did spatial responses, whereas spatial responses interfered more with recall of a line diagram than did vocal responses. In sum, task interference occurred if the tasks' demands required the same type of processing and so had to compete with each other but not when their processing properties did not overlap, supporting the idea of multiple resources.
- Several recent neuroimaging studies provide evidence that there are multiple dissociable mechanisms (resources) in the brain. The distinction between verbal and spatial processing is widely supported by neuroimaging studies that show a double dissociation of neural pathways involved in verbal and spatial working memory (Courtney, Petit, Maisog, Ungerleider, & Haxby, 1998; Jonides et al., 1996; Smith, Jonides, & Koeppe, 1996; Wager & Smith, 2003).
- We tested whether the specific type of working memory load had different effects on the ability to focus on targets and to ignore distractors. To do so, we used two categories of stimuli—one for the target and one for the distractor—and we varied whether the concurrent working memory load stimuli matched the target category or the distractor category. Load theory predicts that the type of working memory load should not matter. Multiple-resource theory predicts that different types of working memory load will have different effects on the task.
- The target images could be same or different, whereas the distractors could also be same or different, making them either congruent or incongruent with the target response. For example, in the face-matching task, participants responded regarding whether the two adjacent faces were the same or different from each other while ignoring whether the distractor scenes were same or different.

21 Mar 09

Time and Cognitive Load in Working Memory

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Research Working Memory Task Switching Multitasking Cognitive Load

Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching

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Task Switching Working Memory Multitasking Research Children Teens

The Multitasking Generation -- Printout -- TIME

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Multitasking Task Switching Research Teens

"Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren't going to do well in the long run," says Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
"You're doing more than one thing, but you're ordering them and deciding which one to do at any one time," explains neuroscientist Grafman.
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- "It seems that action planning--figuring out what I want to say in response to a person's question or which way I want to steer the car--is usually, perhaps invariably, performed sequentially" or one task at a time, says Pashler.
- Similarly, many aspects of perception--looking, listening, touching--can be performed in parallel with action planning and with movement.
  
  The switching of attention from one task to another, the toggling action, occurs in a region right behind the forehead called Brodmann's Area 10 in the brain's anterior prefrontal cortex, according to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study by Grafman's team. Brodmann's Area 10 is part of the frontal lobes, which "are important for maintaining long-term goals and achieving them," Grafman explains. "The most anterior part allows you to leave something when it's incomplete and return to the same place and continue from there." This gives us a "form of multitasking," he says, though it's actually sequential processing. Because the prefrontal cortex is one of the last regions of the brain to mature and one of the first to decline with aging, young children do not multitask well, and neither do most adults over 60. New fMRI studies at Toronto's Rotman Research Institute suggest that as we get older, we have more trouble "turning down background thoughts when turning to a new task," says Rotman senior scientist and assistant director Cheryl Grady.
- David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan: "The toll in terms of slowdown is extremely large--amazingly so." Meyer frequently tests Gen M students in his lab, and he sees no exception for them
- "If a teenager is trying to have a conversation on an e-mail chat line while doing algebra, she'll suffer a decrease in efficiency, compared to if she just thought about algebra until she was done. People may think otherwise, but it's a myth.
- Other research shows the relationship between stimulation and performance forms a bell curve: a little stimulation--whether it's coffee or a blaring soundtrack--can boost performance, but too much is stressful and causes a fall-off. In addition, the brain needs rest and recovery time to consolidate thoughts and memories.

18 Mar 09

Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory — PNAS

www.pnas.org/...0801268105.full.pdf+html - Preview

Working Memory Intelligence Research Technology Multitasking

27 Feb 09

Do Doodle: Doodling Can Help Memory Recall

www.sciencedaily.com/...090226210039.htm - Preview

Research Memory Secondary Task Multitasking

"If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream," said study researcher Professor Jackie Andrade, Ph.D., of the School of Psychology, University of Plymouth. "Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task."

Teen's Ability To Multi-task Develops Late In Adolescence

www.sciencedaily.com/...050518104401.htm - Preview

Research Multitasking Child Development

strategic self-organized thinking, the type that demands a high level of multi-tasking skill, continues to develop until ages 16 to 17

Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain's Learning, UCLA Psychologists Report

www.sciencedaily.com/...060726083302.htm - Preview

Research Multitasking Cognitive Load Learning

Participants in the study, who were in their 20s, learned a simple classification task by trial-and-error. They were asked to make predictions after receiving a set of cues concerning cards that displayed various shapes, and divided the cards into two categories. With one set of cards, they learned without any distractions. With a second set of cards, they performed a simultaneous task: listening to high and low beeps through headphones and keeping a mental count of the high-pitch beeps. While the distraction of the beeps did not reduce the accuracy of the predictions -- people could learn the task either way -- it did reduce the participants' subsequent knowledge about the task during a follow-up session.
When the subjects were asked questions about the cards afterward, they did much better on the task they learned without the distraction. On the task they learned with the distraction, they could not extrapolate; in scientific terms, their knowledge was much less "flexible."
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- The brain's hippocampus -- a sea-horse-shaped structure that plays critical roles in processing, storing and recalling information -- is necessary for declarative memory, Poldrack said. For the task learned without distraction, the hippocampus was involved. However, for the task learned with the distraction of the beeps, the hippocampus was not involved; but the striatum was, which is the brain system that underlies our ability to learn new skills.
  
  The striatum is the brain system damaged in patients with Parkinson disease, Poldrack noted. Patients with Parkinson's have trouble learning new motor skills but do not have trouble remembering the past.

Michael Misha's Library tagged multitasking → View Popular

Multitasking Ability Can Be Improved Through Training

Multitasking In The Car: Just Like Drunken Driving : NPR

Activation Of The Prefrontal Cortex Improves Working Memory

Computer Simulations Explain The Limitations Of Working Memory

Police With Higher Multitasking Abilities Less Likely To Shoot Unarmed Persons

DualTask.org

ScienceDirect - Acta Psychologica : The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control

ScienceDirect - Neuropsychologia : The development of attention skills in action video game players

ScienceDirect - Cognition : Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: the case of action video game players

Viewers Can Learn A Lot About Objects In Their Field Of Vision, Even Without Paying Attention

PsycARTICLES - Can Training in a Real-Time Strategy Video Game Attenuate Cognitive Decline in Older Adults?

Brain Wave Patterns Can Predict Blunders, New Study Finds

PsycARTICLES - Concurrent Working Memory Load Can Facilitate Selective Attention: Evidence for Specialized Load

Time and Cognitive Load in Working Memory

Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching

The Multitasking Generation -- Printout -- TIME

Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory — PNAS

Do Doodle: Doodling Can Help Memory Recall

Teen's Ability To Multi-task Develops Late In Adolescence

Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain's Learning, UCLA Psychologists Report

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