In the key search task in particular, women displayed a clear performance advantage over men, says co-author Prof Keith Laws, of the University of Hertfordshire.
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To make the experiment more relevant to everyday life, the researchers tried a second test.Ī group of women and men were given eight minutes to complete a series of tasks - locating restaurants on a map, doing simple maths problems, answering a phone call, and deciding how they would search for a lost key in a field.Ĭompleting all these assignments in eight minutes was impossible - so it forced men and women to prioritise, organise their time, and keep calm under pressure. "This difference may seem small, but it adds up" over a working day or week, said Dr Stoet. But when the tasks were mixed up there was a clear difference.īoth women and men slowed down, and made more mistakes, as the switching became more rapid.īut the men were significantly slower - taking 77% longer to respond, whereas women took 69% longer. Men and women were equal when tasks were tackled one at a time. Another example might be parents in the household - cooking a meal while looking after young children and suddenly having to answer the phone.įirst, they compared 120 women and 120 men in a computer test which involves switching between tasks involving counting and shape-recognition. These might include office workers who jump between incoming emails, phone calls and assignments, while running in and out of meetings. To settle the argument, Dr Stoet and a colleague set out to compare women and men in a certain type of multitasking the kind we use when faced with juggling many tasks in rapid succession - but not quite simultaneously.Ĭontinue reading the main storyHow good are you at multitasking?Try the multitasking test used by Dr Gijsbert Stoet in his experiment.
One experiment in China found that women outperformed their male counterparts, while another in Sweden found that men may actually be better than women at multitasking when spatial tasks are involved. Previous studies on gender and multitasking have drawn widely different conclusions. "It could be that men suffer more from this constant switching," he told BBC News. "Multitasking is getting more and more important in the office - but it's very distracting, all these gadgets interrupting our workflow. If men really are slower than women, it could have serious implications for how workplaces are organised, says co-author Dr Gijsbert Stoet, of the University of Glasgow. But there's no point denying these differences exist''Įnd QuoteProf Keith LawsUniversity of HertfordshireThe researchers hope to encourage more research on a topic which they say has attracted "astonishingly few" studies - considering how often the "women vs men" debate crops up in conversation.
It says: "The question now is why? And is it all types of multitasking or only certain situations?"Ĭontinue reading the main story''Start Quote"This suggestion does rankle a bit with men.
Men were slower and less organised than women when switching rapidly between tasks in tests by UK psychologists.īoth sexes struggled to cope with juggling priorities, but men suffered more on average, according to the paper in the journal BMC Psychology.
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Network Connections - Full Internet Access: To download shownotes and stream episodesSystem Tools - Prevent phone from sleeping: Keeps your phone's processor awake to play episodes in the backgroundĢ4 October 2013Last updated at11:02 ETBy James MorganScience reporter, BBC NewsIt is not a myth - women really are better than men at multitasking, at least in certain cases, a study says. No Agendroid requires the following permissions on your phone: News stories feature links to archived versions and original sources, audio clips can be played directly from the app, and other documents will open in your phone's appropriate default application. No Agendroid enables easy browsing of each episode's Shownotes in addition to streaming episodes of the show in the background. The various news stories, clips, emails, and documents that go into producing each episode are referred to as Shownotes, and are published by the No Agenda team online. The show is a free-flowing conversation that deconstructs recent news and media issues. 33 from your purchase will be donated to the No Agenda Show!The No Agenda podcast airs live Thursday and Sunday at 9:00PST/12:00EST, hosted by Adam Curry and John C.
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