> BUT I also listened to the lecture. The study ignores the value of having heard the lecture.
You almost certainly did not "absorb" it as well. Good thing they've done studies just like or similar to what you described--guess what? Memory retention is much, much lower as your brain had to bounce in between focusing on the e-mails and the lecture.
>Or say I ride the bus and write a report. I didn't ride any additional miles, so according to that study multi-tasking (writing while riding) didn't do me any good.
Wait, wait, you're counting sitting on the bus as a separate cognitive task than writing a report? Seriously? And you think you're fit to critique this study?
>You have to count BOTH tasks as complete, because you did TWO things.
You don't even understand this study. I doubt you read the article, much less the journal article. This is a study on human cognition in regards to attention.
A partially subconscious "task" is not the same as actually having a goal (or 2 in the case of multitasking) and actively accomplishing it/them.
Again, irrelevant, since cognitively speaking both are two separate tasks and our external interpretation of whether something is being done or accomplished is really quite irrelevant. This is a fine experiment as described and is standard methodology within cognitive psychology. Boy, I wish I had an armchair psychologist's understanding of cognitive psychology so I, too, could bloviate about a subject I know nothing about. Again, this study isn't saying you can't fart and chew bubble gum at the same time, or that you can't save time reading the newspaper while eating your breakfast.
Which, cognitively speaking, is irrelevant. The brain has to focus between two different tasks. Filtering out "distractions" is a task. This research is fine and this is actually very standard sort of methodology in cognitive science/psychology and frankly I'm not even sure how this is even newsworthy at all.
Because cognitively speaking there is no real difference. Whether the additional information is something that is used in the overall task or not is really quite irrelevant to overall performance. After all, what is "relevant" to the task or not really is just our interpretation (in a sort of way).
This research is absolutely fine and you are the one that is utterly confused. What do you think human attention is? Cognitively speaking, the more you have to attend to, the more your attention must shift between all the stimuli. Also, you can't completely focus on what is hitting your ears unless you (to use your own poorly-chosen words) "choose" to attend to it, who cares if they chose the task to begin with or not?
Most of you are confusing multitasking on the overt functional level and the cognitive level; the two are obviously related but this experiment is more directly tied to the cognitive level. Of course "distracting kids!" is, cognitively speaking, multitasking, their brain is given another task to have to attend to in addition to the other(s).
Yes, it is, because the brain doesn't inherently know if a task is related, nor does it matter. The more things the brain must attend do, the worse it does. Play pinball, the more balls on the field the more likely you are to lose a ball due to attentional reasons. The brain doesn't generally do "true" multitasking; attentional control is shifted from one task to the other, perhaps very rapidly, but it generally is quite serial in how it works.
Wow, this is so far off the mark that I'm amazed you got upvoted at all. It's especially clear that you have no background in psychology, and your computer metaphor is particularly gross and is typical of when a computer scientist makes fanciful speculations on the nature of human cognition...
First of all, the claim was not that it is impossible to "multitask" in the ways you mention. Let me preface by saying this gets a little more complex with well-rehearsed tasks that have acquired some level of automaticity to them.
Furthermore,
Except that is not what they tested, is it? They tested people on whether or not they could work efficiently if they are distracted, not whether or not multitasking improves or doesn't improve efficiency.
When it comes to humans, this is essentially the same thing, as attentional focus switches between tasks. Even though the brain is massively parallel, much of human cognition, functionally speaking, works serially. I'm sure you've noticed that the more you attend to the road while driving the less you can follow the music that is playing, and vice versa. Although the nature of attention or what is even the best way to define "attention" is somewhat up in the air, quite generally the more you switch between tasks and the more attentional resources are required, the more you will suffer in performance of all the tasks. It's cute that some of the comments here on slashdot basically amount to, "well, these guys are wrong, just look at what you do in the kitchen!" as if that addresses anything the psychologists are saying. Do you really think psychologists are claiming you can't fart and chew bubble gum at the same time? Hell, let's use that cooking example--how much do you want to bet that the busier a restaurant is (keep the number of employees constant), the rate of errors increases drastically? Yeah, exactly.
Most interesting of all is why slashdot is posting this story, since this sort of thing pretty established in psychological science and many experimental methodologies and techniques regarding attention do just this sort of thing, although maybe not across the same sensory modalities.
How is an iPhone better? Having used both an iPhone and iPad I was far from impressed. The thing I was mostly impressed about was that I had great difficulty trying to use it, because it takes awhile to figure you you actually can't do a lot of very basic computer operations as it's very dumbed down (file system access for one--what the hell?)
What? Valve has multiple teams on different projects. I can't believe you would even post this--hardware people aren't necessarily software people. And if they're doing hardware, how's it gonna run? Oh right, you need software as well. Durr.
The Kindle and Nooks are "fake" android, that is, they are specifically made for certain ecosystems and offer a rather stripped-down experience--mostly geared towards reading. They are analogous devices by any means. I've used my mother's ipad and I can't see why anyone would want one over an android with equivalent power--it's so stripped down and certain tasks on Android are just so much simpler because it's more functional, I can't fathom why someone would want one other than app compability.
Seriously, I live in Nebraska and I take my tablet with me and don't really worry about cellular. In fact I never would have used that; I'm not paying for a dataplan for it! If I want to I will just tether it to my phone.
I appreciate your post because you're one of the few that *gets it*. In markets around the world the wealthy are "discriminated" against in these bazaars or open-air markets because they tell obvious tourists and Americans higher prices because they know they'll pay higher prices. It's very much the culture to haggle in many parts of Mexico, and they'll use their knowledge of the person in their initial offer of the price.
The people here, talking about "fairness" and stuff, I don't see them ever going to address that. They'll sidestep it with some sort of ideological statement that doesn't really get at the heart of the matter. "Fairness" is a subjective assessment that, being invoked, actually supports what I initially said earlier, as what one thinks is fair for them basically IS a sense of entitlement. The connotation of the term "sense of entitlement" is negative, therefore they will deny it, but whether one is "entitled" or not is a real matter and they happen to feel that, yes, they are entitled.
They'll also equivocate over the word discrimination, comparing it to racism when racism is an ideological issue separate from the profit-maximizing of these firms.
Because the product is the seller's to begin with, whereas the buyer has to convince the seller to sell it to him (essentially). In many Mexican markets they haggle, is that an ideological problem for you?
And yet in the markets of a middle eastern country, if you are American they will give you a price higher than that of a local; do you want to complain about discrimination and fairness there as well?
The crux of all these arguments is that value exists independently of what both sides are willing to accept for a good. In the case here it is not discrimination based on race or other factor, it is "discrimination" based on what the party is willing to pay alone. In your case the discriminating it not based on the profit outcome whereas in this case it is.
Exactly, and that's how it still works in many third-world countries or poorer places. Go shopping down in the markets in Mexico and you won't be offered the same prices there as a local. Also, they haggle there as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"Certainly this didn't come from the President directly as he taught Constitutional Law"
Yeah, Obama is Mr. Obama Constitution, right
Which it is, fortunately.
> BUT I also listened to the lecture. The study ignores the value of having heard the lecture.
You almost certainly did not "absorb" it as well. Good thing they've done studies just like or similar to what you described--guess what? Memory retention is much, much lower as your brain had to bounce in between focusing on the e-mails and the lecture.
>Or say I ride the bus and write a report. I didn't ride any additional miles, so according to that study multi-tasking (writing while riding) didn't do me any good.
Wait, wait, you're counting sitting on the bus as a separate cognitive task than writing a report? Seriously? And you think you're fit to critique this study?
>You have to count BOTH tasks as complete, because you did TWO things.
You don't even understand this study. I doubt you read the article, much less the journal article. This is a study on human cognition in regards to attention.
Again, irrelevant, since cognitively speaking both are two separate tasks and our external interpretation of whether something is being done or accomplished is really quite irrelevant. This is a fine experiment as described and is standard methodology within cognitive psychology. Boy, I wish I had an armchair psychologist's understanding of cognitive psychology so I, too, could bloviate about a subject I know nothing about. Again, this study isn't saying you can't fart and chew bubble gum at the same time, or that you can't save time reading the newspaper while eating your breakfast.
Which, cognitively speaking, is irrelevant. The brain has to focus between two different tasks. Filtering out "distractions" is a task. This research is fine and this is actually very standard sort of methodology in cognitive science/psychology and frankly I'm not even sure how this is even newsworthy at all.
Because cognitively speaking there is no real difference. Whether the additional information is something that is used in the overall task or not is really quite irrelevant to overall performance. After all, what is "relevant" to the task or not really is just our interpretation (in a sort of way).
How much you wanna bet the bartender makes more errors the busier it gets and the more stimuli he has to attend to?
This research is absolutely fine and you are the one that is utterly confused. What do you think human attention is? Cognitively speaking, the more you have to attend to, the more your attention must shift between all the stimuli. Also, you can't completely focus on what is hitting your ears unless you (to use your own poorly-chosen words) "choose" to attend to it, who cares if they chose the task to begin with or not?
Most of you are confusing multitasking on the overt functional level and the cognitive level; the two are obviously related but this experiment is more directly tied to the cognitive level. Of course "distracting kids!" is, cognitively speaking, multitasking, their brain is given another task to have to attend to in addition to the other(s).
Yes, it is, because the brain doesn't inherently know if a task is related, nor does it matter. The more things the brain must attend do, the worse it does. Play pinball, the more balls on the field the more likely you are to lose a ball due to attentional reasons. The brain doesn't generally do "true" multitasking; attentional control is shifted from one task to the other, perhaps very rapidly, but it generally is quite serial in how it works.
Wow, this is so far off the mark that I'm amazed you got upvoted at all. It's especially clear that you have no background in psychology, and your computer metaphor is particularly gross and is typical of when a computer scientist makes fanciful speculations on the nature of human cognition...
First of all, the claim was not that it is impossible to "multitask" in the ways you mention. Let me preface by saying this gets a little more complex with well-rehearsed tasks that have acquired some level of automaticity to them.
Furthermore,
When it comes to humans, this is essentially the same thing, as attentional focus switches between tasks. Even though the brain is massively parallel, much of human cognition, functionally speaking, works serially. I'm sure you've noticed that the more you attend to the road while driving the less you can follow the music that is playing, and vice versa. Although the nature of attention or what is even the best way to define "attention" is somewhat up in the air, quite generally the more you switch between tasks and the more attentional resources are required, the more you will suffer in performance of all the tasks. It's cute that some of the comments here on slashdot basically amount to, "well, these guys are wrong, just look at what you do in the kitchen!" as if that addresses anything the psychologists are saying. Do you really think psychologists are claiming you can't fart and chew bubble gum at the same time? Hell, let's use that cooking example--how much do you want to bet that the busier a restaurant is (keep the number of employees constant), the rate of errors increases drastically? Yeah, exactly.
Most interesting of all is why slashdot is posting this story, since this sort of thing pretty established in psychological science and many experimental methodologies and techniques regarding attention do just this sort of thing, although maybe not across the same sensory modalities.
My vision is augmented.
Except android stuff syncs as well or better, and you really want to brag about itunes? Really?
Of course it just works, when it does less there is less of a chance something can break or have bugs. Unless you hold it wrong, of course.
It keeps things easy to use!
This isn't true of many apps for iOS. It's to keep things easier to use.
I agree, but Jelly Bean is largely cleaning this up. The difference still isn't worth the cost or the crippled functionality of the iDevices.
How is an iPhone better? Having used both an iPhone and iPad I was far from impressed. The thing I was mostly impressed about was that I had great difficulty trying to use it, because it takes awhile to figure you you actually can't do a lot of very basic computer operations as it's very dumbed down (file system access for one--what the hell?)
What? Valve has multiple teams on different projects. I can't believe you would even post this--hardware people aren't necessarily software people. And if they're doing hardware, how's it gonna run? Oh right, you need software as well. Durr.
The Kindle and Nooks are "fake" android, that is, they are specifically made for certain ecosystems and offer a rather stripped-down experience--mostly geared towards reading. They are analogous devices by any means. I've used my mother's ipad and I can't see why anyone would want one over an android with equivalent power--it's so stripped down and certain tasks on Android are just so much simpler because it's more functional, I can't fathom why someone would want one other than app compability.
Seriously, I live in Nebraska and I take my tablet with me and don't really worry about cellular. In fact I never would have used that; I'm not paying for a dataplan for it! If I want to I will just tether it to my phone.
they got ipads, didn't they?
I appreciate your post because you're one of the few that *gets it*. In markets around the world the wealthy are "discriminated" against in these bazaars or open-air markets because they tell obvious tourists and Americans higher prices because they know they'll pay higher prices. It's very much the culture to haggle in many parts of Mexico, and they'll use their knowledge of the person in their initial offer of the price.
The people here, talking about "fairness" and stuff, I don't see them ever going to address that. They'll sidestep it with some sort of ideological statement that doesn't really get at the heart of the matter. "Fairness" is a subjective assessment that, being invoked, actually supports what I initially said earlier, as what one thinks is fair for them basically IS a sense of entitlement. The connotation of the term "sense of entitlement" is negative, therefore they will deny it, but whether one is "entitled" or not is a real matter and they happen to feel that, yes, they are entitled.
They'll also equivocate over the word discrimination, comparing it to racism when racism is an ideological issue separate from the profit-maximizing of these firms.
Do you have an ideological problem with auctions and haggling, then?
Because the product is the seller's to begin with, whereas the buyer has to convince the seller to sell it to him (essentially). In many Mexican markets they haggle, is that an ideological problem for you?
And yet in the markets of a middle eastern country, if you are American they will give you a price higher than that of a local; do you want to complain about discrimination and fairness there as well?
The crux of all these arguments is that value exists independently of what both sides are willing to accept for a good. In the case here it is not discrimination based on race or other factor, it is "discrimination" based on what the party is willing to pay alone. In your case the discriminating it not based on the profit outcome whereas in this case it is.
Exactly, and that's how it still works in many third-world countries or poorer places. Go shopping down in the markets in Mexico and you won't be offered the same prices there as a local. Also, they haggle there as well.