New study: Men and women multitask equally well, but men talk less while doing it

Two experiments compared men and women during multitasking. Results showed that men and women performed similarly except in a task that required them to talk while performing other tasks. Men ignored questions posed to them more than twice as often as women. However, when they did answer, the quality and speed of the answers did not differ between men and women. The paper was published in Psychological Research.

Multitasking is the attempt to perform two or more tasks at the same time or to switch rapidly between them. Although people often feel that they are handling several activities simultaneously, the brain usually alternates attention between tasks rather than processing them fully in parallel. This switching can create small delays each time attention has to be redirected. As a result, multitasking tends to reduce speed, accuracy, or both, especially when the tasks are mentally demanding.

Simple or highly practiced activities can sometimes be combined more successfully, such as walking while having a conversation. Problems become greater when two tasks require the same mental resources, such as reading a message while listening carefully to someone speak. Frequent interruptions can also make it harder to remember where a task was left and what still needs to be done. People may nevertheless prefer multitasking because it can make work feel faster, more stimulating, or less monotonous.

Study authors André J. Szameitat and Diana P. Szameitat wanted to explore whether men and women differ in their multitasking abilities. They hypothesized that, during demanding everyday multitasking, men might talk less. To explore this, they designed an experimental procedure that required participants to multitask and included a relatively complex conversation component.

In this procedure, participants had to work on five non-computerized tasks spread across three different tables. The main task was a simulated Cooking Task in which participants had to follow a recipe using pretend cooking utensils and ingredients. They were instructed to interrupt the cooking task when a kitchen timer rang and to work briefly on two paper-and-pencil tasks, before being allowed to return to the cooking task.

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Throughout these tasks, participants had to concurrently monitor a screen showing words on different colored backgrounds and write down specific target words at a third table. They also had to verbally answer complex pre-recorded questions played via speakers such as “Would you rather lose all of your money and valuables or all of the pictures you have ever taken, and why?”. This was the conversation task.

Participants of the first study were 37 women and 41 men. Their average age was 23-24 years. They were recruited from the Brunel University of London campus and received £36 for participation in total. They completed the multitasking procedure consisting of the previously described five tasks. While participants were performing the tasks, the experimenters made notes on participants’ performance. This included manually recording how many questions in the conversation task they were able to answer.

The aim of the second study was to have naïve observers rate the performance of study 1 participants. Participants of this second study were 80 men and 80 women. Their average age was 34-35 years. They were recruited as observers via Testable Minds for a study that took approximately 50 minutes. For their participation, they received $8. Study authors extracted two 75-second clips from recordings of each multitasker from study 1. Each participant viewed 20 such video clips that came from 5 male and 5 female multitaskers.

Results showed that men and women performed similarly in four of the five tasks. As study authors expected, the only exception was the conversation task. On average, participating women answered 25 out of the 28 questions, while men answered 20 out of the 28 questions. In other words, women ignored 12% of the questions, while men ignored 28% of the questions. However, when they did answer, the quality and speed of the answers did not differ between men and women.

When observers from study 2 viewed the clips, they tended to rate women as being more in control of the task, performing better, and being less stressed than men. However, study authors believe that these ratings were strongly influenced by the conversation task performance.

“Taken together, our data confirm that there are no substantial sex differences in cognitive visual-manual tasks, but that significant sex differences do exist in the ability to hold a conversation while multitasking. This is an ability highly salient in everyday life and, thus, could explain the development of the widespread public stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men,” study authors concluded.

The study sheds light on sex differences in multitasking abilities. However, it should be noted that the researchers explicitly described the cooking task as the main task. This may have led participants to see the conversation task as less important. If the conversation task had been framed as equally important as the other tasks, the results might have been different.

The paper, “Men talk less than women during multitasking,” was authored by André J. Szameitat and Diana P. Szameitat.