Search results for "Multitask"

Media multitasking is associated with distractibility and increased prefrontal activity in adolescents and young adults.

2016

The current generation of young people indulges in more media multitasking behavior (e.g., instant messaging while watching videos) in their everyday lives than older generations. Concerns have been raised about how this might affect their attentional functioning, as previous studies have indicated that extensive mediamultitasking in everyday life may be associated with decreased attentional control. In the current study, 149 adolescents and young adults (aged 13-24 years) performed speech-listening and reading tasks that required maintaining attention in the presence of distractor stimuli in the othermodality or dividing attention between two concurrent tasks. Brain activity during task pe…

Estimating brain load from the EEG.

2009

Modern work requires cognitively demanding multitasking and the need for sustained vigilance, which may result in work-related stress and may increase the possibility of human error. Objective methods for estimating cognitive overload and mental fatigue of the brain on-line, during work performance, are needed. We present a two-channel electroencephalography (EEG)–based index, theta Fz/alpha Pz ratio, potentially implementable into a compact wearable device. The index reacts to both acute external and cumulative internal load. The index increased with the number of tasks to be performed concurrently (p= 0.004) and with increased time awake, both after normal sleep (p= 0.002) and sleep restr…

Dual-task conditions on static postural control in older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis

2021

Dual-task (DT) consists of the performance of two tasks simultaneously. An index of DT difficulty has been linked to decreased postural control. Because a wide range of DT is employed, this study aimed to evaluate its effects in static balance in older adults. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were screened, and the secondary tasks were grouped as manual, reaction time, discrimination and decision making, mental tracking, verbal fluency, working memory, or “other” tasks. A total of 66 studies have been included. The meta-analysis was conducted on 28 effects and showed a significant mean effect size of d = 0.24 (p = .02, SE = 0.10; confidence interval [0.04, 0.44]), indicating a worsening i…

Multitasking associative networks.

2012

We introduce a bipartite, diluted and frustrated, network as a sparse restricted Boltzman machine and we show its thermodynamical equivalence to an associative working memory able to retrieve multiple patterns in parallel without falling into spurious states typical of classical neural networks. We focus on systems processing in parallel a finite (up to logarithmic growth in the volume) amount of patterns, mirroring the low-level storage of standard Amit-Gutfreund-Sompolinsky theory. Results obtained trough statistical mechanics, signal-to-noise technique and Monte Carlo simulations are overall in perfect agreement and carry interesting biological insights. Indeed, these associative network…

Three-Way Interactions Among Interruptions/Multitasking Demands, Occupational Age, and Alertness: A Diary Study

2015

In this study, we examined the within-person relationships between workday “cognitive” stressors (multitasking demands and workflow interruptions) and strain (situational well-being throughout the day and irritation in the evening). We hypothesized that occupational age, in terms of job tenure and an indicator of functional age (alertness), would moderate these relationships in that employees with low experience and low alertness would suffer most from the stressors. We conducted a 5-day diary study in a sample of 123 nurses, with 4 measurements per day (3 taken during the work shift and 1 taken in the evening), and 1 survey (occupational age) and computer-based cognitive performance test b…

Work-Family Border Styles and Mobile Technology

2018

Technological innovations and particularly mobile technology have many, complex implications for social life. All in all, mobile technology creates a paradox for employed parents: mobile phones enable better coordination and lower parents’ anxiety over family routines, yet the use of mobile technology increases the need for multitasking and increases the emotional burden of managing multiple roles. It is important to identify differences between workers as not everyone is able to use the possibilities of constant connectivity. This chapter addresses two interlinked topics: first, the possibility for employed parents to occupy different social domains concurrently with mobile technology and …

Digital Stress over the Life Span: The Effects of Communication Load and Internet Multitasking on Perceived Stress and Psychological Health Impairmen…

2016

The present study investigated the psychological health effects and motivational origins of digital stress based on a representative survey of 1,557 German Internet users between 14 and 85 years of age. Communication load resulting from private e-mails and social media messages as well as Internet multitasking were positively related to perceived stress and had significant indirect effects on burnout, depression, and anxiety. Perceived social pressure and the fear of missing out on information and social interaction were key drivers of communication load and Internet multitasking. Age significantly moderated the health effects of digital stress as well as the motivational drivers of communi…

Immune networks: Multi-tasking capabilities at medium load

2013

Associative network models featuring multi-tasking properties have been introduced recently and studied in the low load regime, where the number $P$ of simultaneously retrievable patterns scales with the number $N$ of nodes as $P\sim \log N$. In addition to their relevance in artificial intelligence, these models are increasingly important in immunology, where stored patterns represent strategies to fight pathogens and nodes represent lymphocyte clones. They allow us to understand the crucial ability of the immune system to respond simultaneously to multiple distinct antigen invasions. Here we develop further the statistical mechanical analysis of such systems, by studying the medium load r…

2018

Adolescents with a strong tendency for irrational task delay (i.e., high trait procrastination) may be particularly prone to use Internet applications simultaneously to other tasks (e.g., during homework) and in an insufficiently controlled fashion. Both Internet multitasking and insufficiently controlled Internet usage may thus amplify the negative mental health implications that have frequently been associated with trait procrastination. The present study explored this role of Internet multitasking and insufficiently controlled Internet use for the relationship between trait procrastination and impaired psychological functioning in a community sample of N = 818 early and middle adolescent…

Balancing Structural and Temporal Constraints in Multitasking Contexts

2016

Recent research has shown that when people multitask, both the subtask structure and the temporal constraints of the component tasks strongly influence people’s task-switching behavior. In this paper, we propose an integrated theoretical account and associated computational model that aims to quantify how people balance structural and temporal constraints in everyday multitasking. We validate the theory using data from an empirical study in which drivers performed a visual-search task while navigating a driving environment. Through examination of illustrative protocols from the model and human drivers as well as the overall fit on the aggregate glance data, we explore the implications of th…