Multitasking for Aspies impossible???

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Ugh... Why do I even bother?

You made this reply before to me:

True multitasking does not exist. The only way anyone emulates multitasking is by rapidly switching from doing one task to another. In autistic people, this is typically very difficult to do. I, personally, fall in either in the 1st or 2nd percentile for switching tasks, meaning that 98-99% of people are better at it than me. Which makes sense, that's why it's more obvious that I can't seem to multitask, even though nobody truly can.

What about singing and playing an instrument?

there are people who can hit notes pitch perfect while playing different melodys/rythms and harmonizing on an instrument

it interests me because i can sing and play a few instruments but put them together it doesnt happen

the same thing goes for if someone speaks to me while im playing i either nod as if im listening or have to stop playing

then again if im trying to talk everything else stops working resulting in many falls and stumbles and increased oafishness

While true multi-tasking may be hard for everyone to do, when I'm forced to switch tasks as in my work, I'm still thinking about the previous task which screws me up on the new task or if I expect a new task any time in the future, I can't concentrate as well on the current task. Everybody may have this problem but I feel like I'm on the lower end of the continuum. The problem seems worse when I'm suddenly disturbed from my task task. I literally feel like killing the person who disturbes me because I tend to have good hyper-focusing/concentration and the disturbance seems to get me "out of my groove" and I have trouble going back to it or picking up where I left up. I also find talking to people is harder than writing because I can't look back and remember what I said, whereas I can when I'm writing stuff. In a sense, direct commucation kind of involves successive tasking as described here:

"When you have a conversation, there’s lots of information to decode all at once: words, body language, facial expressions. A simple talk with your best friend requires an astonishing array of tasks: interpreting what your friend is saying; taking turns talking and listening; responding to what your friend just said; assessing whether you’re being understood; determining whether you’ve been favorably received, and if not, how to improve the situation. Think of what it takes to juggle all this at once! And that’s just a one-on-one conversation. Now imagine the multi-tasking required in a group setting like a dinner party."

Having said this, I think I'm much better on concentrating on one single task than most people. I think this is common in introverts/AS. Whether one calls it multi-tasking or switching quickly between multiple tasks, I'm not sure?

http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/201 ... i-tasking/

I have major issues with multi-tasking...Unless I am reading a book and my hand starts playing with the page for instance, so I can multitask if one of the activites is something that really takes no thought and that I am not fully concious of. But I cannot focus on more than one thing at once very easily at all, it just confuses me and then I end up messing up everything I am doing.

I used to multitask because if I would zone out if I tried to focus on only one thing at a time. I had to keep switching focus between different task in order to stay focused. I'm a lot worse at multitasking now due to spending 5 years on psych meds. I have a lot more problems focusing on anything than I used to

If I switch tasks I often either get too absorbed in what I switched to and forget about the one I switched from, or I make the conscious effort to switch quickly and end up not doing anything on either/all tasks. I'm starting to realise this, and work more sequentially. At work, I minimise all windows not associated with the one thing I'm working on right now. Sometimes I don't see emails the minute they're delivered, but if it was urgent they'd call/come see me. It really takes a load off of my mind

Tasks can be lumped together as one larger task and then practiced. People have said before "you need to work on multitasking" in relation to specific activities, then when I become good at that activity it looks like I can multitask but I've really just lumped tasks together. The 'multitasking' from one task does not carry over to multitasking in other tasks unless they're similar and then it's an imperfect carryover and is likely only to work if I remember to focus on the memories of what I learned from the other task before I start.

I don't think multitasking is that enviable. Science has proven that when people multitask they spend more energy than if they just did it one at a time and it takes them longer. The only reason to switch between things is if coordinating them produces synergy of some kind, and then you might as well get that down enough so you can understand that coordination as a single task instead of trying to multitask it every time.

"Multitasking" is vestigial. When we lived in the wild where anything could happen the need to be able to switch tasks when unfamiliar with the set of tasks being switched was important we needed it. But humans don't need it anymore. Soon science will be able to describe social processes in enough detail that we can all just read a book, apply it in practice just a little, and then understand people and this kind of teaching will be routinely given to young children. When that happens the problems of autism disappear and it clearly becomes more adaptable than "normal". We're the next stage of evolution. The rising rates shouldn't be surprising given the vast changes that have happened in the world over the past few hundred years. Looking at the many problems that have arisen humanity needs this evolution to survive. If we "cure" and reverse the evolution humanity is doomed. Anyone with what is now "neurotypical" phenotype would in the far future be considered disabled, at some point in the future to the point living independently would be impossible.

Multitasking is impossible for me due to my problems with working memory.

*sigh*

Should I even bother to set everyone straight?

First, I severely dislike the word "multitask"... It's one of those yuppie fake professional BMW-driving pretend-to-be-rich and "have a super-important career" words that just bugs me.

With that off my chest, I cannot do it anyway. I will do one thing at a time excellently, or two things poorly or incompletely. This is why I won't answer a phone while driving. My mind is either driving the car, or it is answering a phone... No middle ground! I also cannot work and talk at the same time. If I try, I will do the job all SNAFU'd, and speak nonsense anyway to the other party.

Charles

This thread does seem to have a lot of miss-communication happening...

I thought I would summarize what I have understood as the main points before I add my own 2 cents.

1. Multi-tasking is generally talked about as doing 2 or more different tasks simultaneously.

2. In reality, what is actually happening is that people are quickly shifting between different tasks, but only one individual task is being worked on at any one point in time. This means that, autistic or not, no-one can truly multi-task, what people are talking about is actually the ability to shift quickly between multiple tasks (and this is what I mean when I talk about multi-tasking below, not simultaneous processing)

3. The exception to this is tasks which can be completed fully automatically and do not require higher processing - for example walking and talking simultaneously.

4. It may be harder for people on the autism spectrum to multitask, due to the difficulty in switching between tasks.


For my point of view, the ability to multi-task will vary from person to person, both on and off the spectrum. For myself, I have a job which requires frequent multi-tasking, and I have thought a lot about what makes it possible to do. It seems to me that memory, and how things are remembered, is probably a greater influence than the speed of switching between the tasks itself.

The tasks I am doing are all well-defined and predictable (although not routine enough to be automatic), which allows me to slot tasks into "chunks" to remember, rather than having to remember each thing. The way memory seems to work is that it is limited by the number of items (I think it's about 5-7 items) but each "item" can be a "chunk" of information that contains further items within it. What I find is that if I am able to put the information I need for each task into one "chunk" of information, I am able to remember it while I complete another task. When I first started the job though, I was not familiar enough with it to do that, and had to finish it before I moved on or I would not be able to remember what I was doing to go back to. I still cannot handle multiple tasks if they are novel or unexpected.

My theory (which has not been tested to my knowledge, so is definitely unproven) is that the ability to multi-task is limited, in all people, by the ability to remember the important information required to continue the task when you switch your active thought processes to it - this might be enhanced by familiarity with the task, or a better ability to create a "chunk" of information (could also be looked at as a mental placeholder which leads to other information). It is also influenced by the ability to switch between tasks quickly, but that this is effected greatly by whether you are able to remember the information you needed to keep working on it - some people may actually be experiencing having to start the task from scratch every time they switch as being "slow to switch tasks" where it is actually an issue holding the task in memory.

I have seen experiments showing people learning to remember ridiculously large amount of numbers by learning to group them into chunks - I would be interested to know if learning to put information into chunks could improve multi-tasking also.


The other issue I see raised here in regard to multi-tasking is defining what is an individual task. One example given was singing and playing a musical instrument at the same time. My belief is that this is not really separate tasks at all, in the same way that picking up a box with both hands does not involve a separate task for each hand - the music is more complicated, but works along the same lines. For this to be true multi-tasking, a person would need to be able to sing and play completely different and unrelated songs at the same time.

Another example given for multi-tasking was cooking. As someone who loves cooking, and has often created very demanding and intricate menus, I do not see this as multi-tasking at all. What I am actually doing is working out a complicated sequence of events, which is followed one after the other. It might appear from the outside that I am doing multiple things at once, I know I am never thinking about more than one thing simultaneously - in fact I am generally so focused on each individual task and just following the routine it can feel like meditation!


As a final note, I have remembered as I am writing this reading about people who are able to write completely separate things with each hand, which would seem perhaps to be true "simultaneous processing" multi-tasking. I am not sure how accurate these reports are though, and have not seen much detail about these people. There is definitely a group of people who can multi-task in this sense though, which is a small group of people who have had an operation to separate the halves of their brain (generally to cure epilepsy) These people operate as if they have 2 separate brains, and one hand will literally not know what the other is doing - I don't think this is directly relevant to most people, but does perhaps point to the neurological possibility of simultaneous processing.