Multitasking test

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Kind of interesting; tests your multitasking/executive function ability.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... -demo.html

the methodology behind the results seems kind of strange though; I wonder what it reveals other than the possibility that a lot of people who consider themselves multitaskers aren't very self-perceptive. What do you think?

Very interesting.
That was a difficult test for me (very confusing, and I was very slow responding), but oddly, the test after that one - Test Your Focus, with colored rectangles, was easy:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... -demo.html

But I'm not a multitasker.

I don't quite understand my result in that test though. It said I scored 100% in both 2 distractions and 6 distractions.. so apparently I can focus on a specific thing while ignoring the others? I don't think so... usually I'm having a hard time finding out what is relevant and what's not. And I didn't quite understand the other test, the multitasking one, either the instructions are misleading or I'm too slow to understand.
Anyway, I don't like multitasking anyway.

I got the same thing.

I had to redo the first thing about the numbers and letters after I rapid fire clicked, knowing I must have done it wrong.

I found that multitasking really hard...and scored terribly.

I scored above the high-multitasking marker considerably but I feel like this is a different kind of multitasking then I usually consider multitasking to be... It strikes me as a singular task to just follow a series of rules.

If x do y, then if a then b ETC

If I am actually trying to manage two tasks at once I usually just forget what I'm doing altogether at some point.

My results on that are somewhat odd I think.

Switching took me longer than both low and high multitaskers, as did doing the same task.

However, the odd part. It took me 48 milliseconds less on average when I was swapping tasks then when I was doing the same task.

Edit:

For the other test, I got 100%. That was a really easy test.

I was slower than high and low multitaskers in the switching- and doing the same-task. I don't know what this means.
In the focus test, I got 100% for everything which means better than low and high multitaskers.
Again, not sure what those results mean.

According to this low multitaskers hold more items in their short term memory and thus focus better while high multitaskers take longer to switch tasks and do the same task over again....which means roughly speaking, that I would be a low and high multitasker accoriding to this test...which doesn't make sense.

Anybody else got a better interpretation of similar results?

Interesting. I was pretty slow (>2000ms) but there was almost no difference between switching and repeating. Like camelCase the tests seemed like a singular task to me.

On the distractions test I lost my focus for a second and missed one. Second time round I got 100% on both.

The tests seem to be too simple to actually draw conclusions from. I'm not a multitasker.

According to the task juggling test, I seem to be 400ms slower on average than low multitaskers (1422ms for switching tasks).

The distractions test was rather easy, I scored 100%. It went to fullscreen to minimize other distractions, then displayed just a few objects at a time. The test was short, and I had no external distractions (except me looking at the test progress every time). It's easiest for me to remember things visually. Real life tasks however, are usually longer and there are more distractions. It's longer tasks where my attention usually starts to shift away to other things.

oh geeze, I did really bad. I always thought I was a decent multi-tasker, but this test was somewhat difficult for me. I didn't get much wrong, but my times were very slow.

Switching Between Letters and Numbers: 4043
Repeating the same task: 2311
Additional Time for switching: 1732

I did shockingly badly on the first test; my times were really slow. The second test I got 100%.

I had no difference for switching/same task on the multitasking test, both rather slow. For each one I just had to think my way through 'letter'->/u/->'vowel' as though I was thinking of a shopping list, maybe better multitaskers can do it automatically?

I did pretty badly. Speed is not my strong suit especially for these confusing types of questions. I didn't even understand what the test was asking before I got through the first five problems or so. I think I could slightly better if I took it again but not much better.

Bad for 1
good for 2

I thought I did well at the switching task, but here are my scores, which are pretty bad:
Switching Between Letters and Numbers: 1607
Repeating the same task: 1179
Additional Time for switching: 429
But I got them all right, that must count for something.

I scored really well on the distraction test (100% for both). I found it really easy, because I could still see an image of the red rods in my mind and was able to match (or not) against the 2nd picture.