Women have edge in multi-tasking – study
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You’ve seen the kids off to school, ridden your horse, picked upwards poop, done the housework in addition to organised dinner, all spell organising the farrier in addition to plumbing equipment inward a picayune grocery shopping spell taking your elderly mother in law for an appointment.
Yes, the average horse-loving housewife is living proof of what British psychologists convey but demonstrated inward a study: that women are meliorate at multi-tasking than men.
The researchers said it was a mutual belief that women tin juggle dissimilar tasks at the same time, spell men respect it hard to produce to a greater extent than than ane affair at a time.
Despite this notion beingness widely believed, picayune enquiry has been focused on the issue.
Now, novel enquiry from the universities of Hertfordshire, Glasgow in addition to Leeds, but published inward the journal, BMC Psychology, provides back upwards for the proposal that women are meliorate at multi-tasking.
Keith Laws, professor of cognitive neuropsychology at the University of Hertfordshire, said: “We’ve all heard stories most men non beingness able to multi-task in addition to exclusively beingness able to focus on ane affair at a time. And besides stories most women who are able to grapple several activities at the same time.
“Through a develop of 2 experiments, nosotros measured people’s mightiness to comport out multiple tasks either at the same fourth dimension or inward rattling quick succession. And the results showed that women had a distinct wages inward both types of multi-tasking.”
In the kickoff experiment, 120 men in addition to 120 women participated inward a computer-based challenge designed to mensurate their task-switching abilities. The participants performed 2 tasks separately earlier beingness asked to perform them both inward the same test.
Although men in addition to women performed the separate tasks alongside the same speed in addition to accuracy, men were slower than women on the mixed tasks.
Women’s responses were unopen to 61 per centum slower, whereas men’s responses were 77 per centum slower – suggesting that women convey an wages over men inward this type of multitasking.
In the minute experiment, a dissimilar grouping of 47 men in addition to 47 women were tested to mensurate their response to multitasking inward to a greater extent than mutual real-life tasks.
In a pre-set fourth dimension limit, they were asked to sketch out how they would endeavour a search for a develop of lost keys inward a field; to respect eating seat symbols on a map of the urban center of Philadelphia (to exam their everyday attending levels); in addition to solve elementary arithmetical questions.
The tasks were chosen to exam their planning in addition to strategic abilities, their attending command in addition to manipulation of elementary information nether fourth dimension pressure.
It was left for participants to create upwards one's take away heed how to divide the fourth dimension betwixt each chore in addition to they were besides told to human face a telephone phone band at some holler for during the exam – which they could select to reply or not. If they answered the phone, they were asked a serial of additional full general noesis questions to add together to the burden.
In this serial of tests, women scored significantly higher on the primal search chore – suggesting that they are meliorate at tasks which require high-level cognitive control, specially planning, monitoring in addition to inhibition.
Overall, the results of both experiments back upwards the notion that women are meliorate at multitasking than men.
However, farther enquiry is required to render explanations every bit to exactly why women seem to live on meliorate multi-taskers.
Laws was joined inward the enquiry past times Gijsbert Stoet, Daryl O’Connor in addition to Mark Conner.
Are women meliorate than men at multi-tasking?
Gijsbert Stoet, Daryl B O’Connor, Mark Conner in addition to Keith R Laws
BMC Psychology 2013, 1:18 doi:10.1186/2050-7283-1-18.
The enquiry was supported past times a grant from the British Academy.
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