Cognitive- Multitasking

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  • Created by: Amy
  • Created on: 17-12-21 16:07
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  • Multitasking
    • Divided attention
      • The ability to respond seeming simultaneously to multiple tasks or demands- impacted by a number of factors about the tasks involved (practice, task difficulty, task similarity)
      • Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)- impact of practice
        • ps shown target stimulus (number-target, letter- distractors), followed by 20 test frames shown rapidly, carried out two tasks: retaining target in memory, attending to target and distractor stimuli)
          • Initial performanec+ 55%, rose to 90% at around 900 trials, afetr 600 trials ps reported a sense of automaticity
        • Task difficulty- later experiments showed if both target and distracters were letters, no automaticity was shown
      • Task similarity - McCleod (1977) demonstrated the impact of task modality
        • ps had to identify tones by pointing to labels or identifying them verbally while following a contour of a line (visual and manual resources) (one hard to contour, one to point), more errors in contour task when the tone task required pointing. Similar nature makes it hard to do concurrently
    • Driving and using a phone
      • Strayer and Johnson (2001)-  ps using a mobile were slower to respond and missed more red lights regardless of whether the phone was hands free or not
        • Uses cognitive resources that would be used for driving
      • Redelmier & Tibshirani (1997)- examined mobile phone records of 699 drivers involved in collisions, using a phone was associated with quadrupling the risk of a collision  (4.3 times more likely), hands free was no safer than handheld, risk was imilar for drivers who differed in characteristics like age and driving
      • Caird et al (2008)- meta analysis with sample size of approx 2000 ps, reaction times to events (eg brake lights on the car infront) increased by 250 ms when ps used phones
        • Across different test settings, effect  larger when drivers were talking than when   listening
      • Caird et al (2014)- meta analysis of studies on texting and driving (n=977), typing & reading texts adversely affected eye movement, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, speed, lane positioning
        • Smaller decrements for only reading
      • Dingus et al (2016)- increase in the prevalence of texting while driving
        • Atwood (2018)- reported similar findings as Caird et al (2014), those who text more at increased risk of crashing
      • Strayer et al (2003)- group 1: drive in a sim and brake unexpectantly, group 2: drive and talk hands free and brake unexpectedly
        • results- during low traffic conditions group 2 took slightly longer to press the brake, high traffic conditions group 2 toom much longer to press brake
      • Wandtner et al (2018)- Investigated response times to critical tasks when driving in automated driving systems and performing non-driving tasks
        • RTs were quickest in control conditions and with an auditory vocal task, longer when NDR task was visual- vocal and even longer when visual- manual
          • phones cause a decreased performances of driving even in highly automated systems
      • Drews et al (2008)- a convo with someone who is present is different than talking on the phone
        • Traffic becomes topic of convo so both show situational awareness, driving conditions influences complexity of convo
        • A passenger who is too supportive (constantly commenting and directing) in an over controlling fashion has a potentially negative impact on performance
      • Hyman et al (2010)- phone users walked slower, changed directions more, were less likely to acknowledge others or to notice unusual activity eg unicycling clown
        • Mobile phone usage may cause inattentional blindness even during a simple task/ cativity that should require few cog resources
    • Why people multitask
      • Approach orientated/ reward focused- consider benefits, higher potential rewards it presents
      • High sensation seeker- constant stimulation and enjoy the novelty
      • Convinced you are good at it
      • Have trouble focusing- prone to distraction
      • OFCOM (2010)- 7h 5m spent engaging in media/communications (45%), 20% of media activity is spent using more than one form at one time
      • Ophir et al (2009)- questionnaire, heavy media multitaskers more susceptible to interference from irrelevent environmental stimuli
        • Performed worse on a test of task switching ability
      • Loh et al (2014)- fMRIs of 75 adults, multimedia multitaskers had smaller grey matter density in areas responsible for cog and emotional control functions
      • Misra et al (2016)- relationship between phone presence and quality of real in-person interactions (rated less fulfilling with lower empathetic concerns)
      • Watson & Strayer (2010)- supertaskers are rare
    • Task switching- ability to switch attention between one task and another, comes at a cost- slower performance and decreases accuracy (can cost as much as 40% of someone productive time- APA 2006)

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