If Multitasking Is Impossible, Why Are Some People So Good at It?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/if-multitasking-is-impossible-why-are-some-people-so-good-at-it/248648/

by llambda • 15 years ago

27 11 15 years ago

theatlantic.com

boon• 15 years ago

I think some people are just good at switching.

sp332• 15 years ago

Maybe they can abstract multiple things into a single cognitive context, and then they don't have to switch.

williamcotton• 15 years ago

This definitely applies to doing things like playing the drums, singing and playing the guitar at the same time, or a number of other musical activities.

waxymonkeyfrog• 15 years ago

But that's exactly it. It's not how well you can pay attention to A and B at the same time. It's about how fast your brain goes A to B and back to A without losing acuteness.

jwingy• 15 years ago

Reminds me of node.js: single-threaded but very fast at switching to do different things.

bigtech• 15 years ago

I suspect there are some tasks that require a lot of focus, so switching tasks is intrinsically costly. While other tasks allow someone to return a prior state very quickly.

ars• 15 years ago

The task switch vs multitask is a red herring given that computers also task switch, rather than multitask.

Multi core doesn't count since that's essentially two computers. And multiple ALUs in a CPU also don't count given that the brain has trillions of "logic units".

And in any case people multi task constantly - I can walk, talk, breath, enjoy scenery, look for obstacles, maintain cardiovascular pressure, digest food, maintain proper eye focus, and a really impressive number of other things (that are all brain controlled - not independent) in a true simultaneous fashion.

And if you mean multi task higher level thought - people do that too. How many times do you suddenly find the solution to a problem you are working on while doing something else entirely?

The only thing we don't multi task is attention. And that's by definition not by reality. Something that can multi task attention is considered to be two somethings rather than a multitasker.

tsunamifury• 15 years ago

I've always assumed the real problem is swap time between non-repetitive tasks.

Bjartr• 15 years ago

Hooray for semantic arguments that miss the point.

wslh• 15 years ago

If you focus on multitasking then it's a single task.

mannicken• 15 years ago

Our brain is capable of creating several personalities that argue with each other (see split identity disorder). Of course it can handle multi-tasking.

If Multitasking Is Impossible, Why Are Some People So Good at It?

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