Multitasking isn’t one skill: new study reveals it’s a mix of general and specific abilities

The study, led by the University of Surrey and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, brought together 224 university students who tackled nine different multitasking challenges.  

These challenges were carefully chosen to represent three main types of multitasking: concurrent multitasking, like talking on the phone while driving. Involves doing two things at once; task switching,  such as replying to emails while attending to notifications, requires rapid shifts between two tasks; and complex multitasking, like managing a busy kitchen, demands prioritisation and flexible planning. 

By analysing individual differences in how participants performed on these varied tasks, the researchers discovered that no single multitasking ability explains performance across all tasks.  

Instead, they found that task-switching performance is largely driven by a general multitasking ability that applies broadly across different situations. However, concurrent multitasking and complex multitasking involve both this general ability and specific skills unique to those types of multitasking. For example, complex multitasking often demands more “working memory capacity” - the brain's ability to hold and manipulate information temporarily. 

 This helps explain why previous studies have produced conflicting results - often due to focusing on just one type of multitasking.. For example, some research suggested women were better multitaskers (often based on task-switching tests), while other studies hinted men were superior (often based on concurrent multitasking tests). This new study suggests these differences might be due to the specific type of multitasking being measured, rather than a universal gender difference.