Why your brain just pretends (study)

While we are writing on an Excel spreadsheet in the office, a call comes. Instead of ignoring it or stopping working on the spreadsheet, many people probably simply answer the call – and do both at the same time. This form of multitasking is often essential, especially in everyday working life, in order to be able to process the mountain of tasks. But is what we are doing really multitasking?

“Multitasking” only under certain circumstances

The researchers Torsten Schubert (Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg), Roman Liepelt (Fernuniversität Hagen) and Tilo Strobach (Hamburg Medical School) asked themselves these and other questions in their scientific work. To first find out how good people are at doing multitasking work and how to train them, they conducted experiments with test subjects.

During the course of the experiments, the participants had to indicate the size of a circle with their right hand, which was briefly shown to them. At the same time a tone sounded. They had to tell the researchers whether to rate the pitch as high, medium or low – while indicating the size of the circle. It measured how quickly they were able to complete the task and how many mistakes they made.

In the first attempts, many of the test subjects failed to complete the tasks at the same time. However, with some training, her multitasking skills changed. After twelve days of completing the tasks regularly, there were significant improvements in the results. The test subjects became faster and made fewer mistakes. According to the researchers, this is not multitasking, but rather a quick sequence of completing tasks.

So our brain is not able to handle both tasks at the same time. But after a certain amount of training, the gaps between tasks become so small that our brains can process them almost simultaneously. Schubert says: “Our brain is very good at sequencing processes so that they do not interfere with each other. But this optimization has its limits. In very challenging situations, our cognitive apparatus quickly tires and becomes prone to errors.”

This is also evident in a third round of experiments. The sequence in which the tasks appeared was slightly modified. The result: Although the test subjects had improved significantly beforehand, they made mistakes again and took longer to complete the tasks. Strobach says: “Our results show that multitasking in everyday life can often be risky, regardless of a routine – for example if you are driving a car and talking to someone on the phone at the same time.” Liepelt adds: “Understanding these cognitive bottlenecks is essential to improving work processes, learning environments and safety measures in everyday life.”

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