Multitasking as Skill Acquisition

Multitasking is a critical ability that allows people to cope with and flourish in the complex world that we live in. However, as much as cognitive scientists have learned about the inner workings of human cognition, our ability to multitask remains a mystery. In this paper, we argue that we can best understand multitasking as a product of production composition (Taatgen & Lee, submitted), a computational theory of procedural skill acquisition that has been implemented within in the ACT-R framework (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998). Production composition has been used successfully to account for skill acquisition in a wide variety of domains including language learning (Taatgen & Anderson, submitted) and individual differences in complex skill acquisition (Taatgen, 2001). We believe that it can also be used to account for the acquisition of multitasking skill.

Multitasking is the ability to handle the demands of multiple tasks simultaneously. At the most basic level, this may involve executing multiple perceptual-motor actions at the same time, such as moving your attention to the next lane and turning the steering wheel. At a more complex level, this may involve interleaving the steps of many complex tasks, such as shifting down to a lower gear while navigating a curve and carrying on a conversation.

Important insights into people’s ability to multitask come from the dual-task performance literature. One such insight is that while there is some interference between the two tasks that are being performed (with a caveat regarding the modality of stimuli and responses), people can consciously trade off performing one task for the other (Wickens & Gopher, 1977). Another is that people’s performances in both tasks depend highly on their skill in the individual tasks (Allport, Antonis, & Reynolds, 1972). That is, being skilled in one task allows a person to perform it and other tasks with negligible impact on the overall performance of both tasks. For example, a skill driver might have little difficulty talking with a friend while driving, whereas a novice driver might find it difficult. 

Author: Anderson (1995)

Source:

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Allport, D.A., Antonis, B., & Reynolds, P. (1972). On the division of attention: A disproof of the single channel hypothesis. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 24, 255-265. 

*Anderson, J.R. (1982). Acquisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review, 89, 369–406.

*Anderson, J.R. (1995). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. NY: Freeman. 

*Anderson, J.R., & Lebiere, C. (1998). The Atomic Components of Thought. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 

*Byrne, M. D., & Anderson, J. R. (1998). Perception and Action. In J. R. Anderson & C. Lebiere (Eds.), The atomic components of thought (pp. 167-200). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Fitts, P.M. (1964). Perceptual-motor skill learning. In A.W. Melton (Ed.), Categories of human learning. New York, NY: Academic Press.