Investigating the relationship between media multitasking and processes involved in task-switching.

Abstract

Although multitasking with media has increased dramatically in recent years (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010), the association between media multitasking and cognitive performance is poorly understood. In addition, the literature on the relationship between media multitasking and task-switching, one measure of cognitive control, has produced mixed results (Alzahabi & Becker, 2013; Minear et al., 2013; Ophir, Nass, & Wagner, 2009). Here we use an individual differences approach to investigate the relationship between media multitasking and task-switching performance by first examining the structure of task-switching and identifying the latent factors that contribute to switch costs. Participants performed a series of 3 different task-switching paradigms, each designed to isolate the effects of a specific putative mechanism (e.g., advanced preparation) related to task-switching performance, as well as a series of surveys to measure media multitasking and intelligence. The results suggest that task-switching performance is related to 2 somewhat independent factors, namely an advanced preparation factor and passive decay factor. In addition, multitasking with media was related to a faster ability to prepare for tasks, resulting in faster task-switching performance without a cost to accuracy. Media multitasking and intelligence were both unrelated to passive decay factors. These findings are consistent with a 2-component model of task-switching (Sohn & Anderson, 2001), as well as an automatic/executive framework of cognitive control (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). (PsycINFO Database Record

Exploring the relationship between executive functions and self-reported media-multitasking in young adults

“…Thus the present study adds to the literature suggesting that media-multitasking is not associated with cognitive flexibility (Baumgartner et al, 2014;Cardoso-Leite et al, 2016;Gorman & Green, 2016;Minear et al, 2013), adding novelty with the use of specific tasks that have not previously been explored in relation to media-multitasking. Although, the findings are inconsistent with Ophir et al, (2009) and Wiradhany & Nieuwenstein (2017) who found HMMs to be worse at task switching and, contrastingly, who found heavy media-multitaskers to be more resistant to switch costs; and Alzahabi et al, (2017) who found media-multitasking to be associated with faster task switching. Thus, while there seems to be some evidence that media-multitasking is associated with performance in simple task-switching paradigms, these effects may be too small to be detectable in more complex tasks that involve switching, limiting real-world implications.…”

“…It may be more practical to take a similar approach to Alzahabi et al, (2017), and focus on a single executive function and have multiple tasks for that function. It would be particularly interesting to see this for working memory in relation to media-multitasking, with a study utilising a number of tasks assessing different aspects of working memory, tasks such as; span tasks, filter tasks, and n-back tasks, within a single sample.…”

“…Baumgartner et al, 2014;Cardoso-Leite et al, 2016;Minear et al, 2013). Two studies have even found the opposite, with HMMs displaying a lower switch-cost, indicating better task switching ability , and an association of media-multitasking with faster task switching, due to a faster ability to prepare in advance (Alzahabi, Becker & Hambrick, 2017). These inconsistent findings suggest that it may be beneficial to use other measures besides task-switching to explore the relationship between mediamultitasking and cognitive flexibility.…”

“…A way to address the issue of task impurity is to use more than one task to measure the executive function of interest (Snyder et al, 2012), which facilitates the utilisation of the shared variance of the multiple tasks to be used as a latent variable of the underlying construct. For example, this type of approach was previously used by Alzahabi et al, (2017), who examined task switching in relation to media-multitasking. A latent variable approach was also explored in the current study, with the application of confirmatory factor analysis on data from a battery of executive function tasks, within a single sample.…”

Media multitasking, mind-wandering, and distractibility: A large-scale study

“…Evidence against the internal distraction hypothesis Although several studies have reported overall worse task performance of HMMs compared to LMMs, others have found that performance of HMMs and LMMs did not differ in tasks such as a change-detection task (Cardoso-Leite et al, 2015;Gorman & Green, 2016;Wiradhany & Nieuwenstein, 2017, Exp. 2), an N-back task (Edwards & Shin, 2017;Wiradhany & Nieuwenstein, 2017), a digit-span task (Baumgartner, Weeda, van der Heijden, & Huizinga, 2014), sustained attention tasks (Ralph, Thomson, Seli, Carriere, & Smilek, 2015), a task-switching paradigm (Alzahabi, Becker, & Hambrick, 2017;Baumgartner et al, 2014;Minear et al, 2013), an Eriksen flanker task (Murphy, McLauchlan, & Lee, 2017), and a Go/noGo task (Murphy et al, 2017;Ophir et al, 2009). In addition, one study found that HMMs performed better than LMMs.…”