Multitasking may be an illusion, but it really comes in handy. A new study, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that simply perceiving one or more activities as multitasking is enough to improve our performance.
Previous neuroscience research has exposed that the ability to multitask is nothing more than a myth . Since the mid-1990s, a series of experiments have shown that instead of multitasking, the human brain can only switch between tasks.
And the change of tasks has its cost. Some studies have shown that even when the tasks we switch to are predictable, or we have done them hundreds of times before, it takes us longer to complete them, compared to doing the same task repeatedly.
Functional MRI studies have also supported the claim that multitasking is a myth. For example, a study that examined brain activity involved in switching between two tasks found a 29% and 53% decrease, respectively, in brain activity when participants were asked to switch tasks.
However, new research suggests that this collection of studies doesn’t tell the whole story. The new results indicate that even if multitasking is a myth or an illusion, this illusion can increase performance.
In the new work, Shalena Srna of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA, explains: “Multitasking is often a matter of perception or can even be seen as an illusion. Regardless of whether people actually engage in a single task or multiple tasks, having them perceive this activity as multitasking is beneficial for performance. “
We work better
Our perception of people on what constitutes multitasking is flexible. We can consider sitting in a meeting as a single task, or we can think of it as two tasks if we listen to the speaker while taking notes.
Hence, the experts reviewed 32 studies that summarized the perceptions of 8,242 participants in order to shed light on this issue.
In one of these studies, the researchers asked 162 participants to watch and transcribe an educational video. The researchers divided the participants into two groups: They told one group that they would be completing two tasks, that is, learning and transcribing, and they told the other group that they would participate in a single task that assessed their learning and writing skills.
Participants who believed they were multitasking transcribed more words per second and did so with greater precision than the other group. They also performed better on the comprehension test. Other studies replicated these findings.
Overall, all of the results examined do not indicate that we should start multitasking to increase performance, the researchers explain, but they suggest that perceiving any activity as multitasking influences that person’s performance.
” In today’s society, we constantly feel that we are juggling different activities to meet the demands on our time, both at work and at home. So it seems like multitasking is everywhere,” says Srna.
“We found that multitasking is often a matter of perception, that it helps, rather than harm, commitment and performance. Therefore, when we engage in a certain activity, interpreting it as multitasking could help us, ” says the expert.
Reference: The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance
Shalena Srna, Rom Y. Schrift, Gal Zauberman
First Published October 24, 2018 Research Article / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618801013
