Age, intelligence and attentional resource allocation for cognitive multi-tasking: An exploratory study

Pages: 1813-1819
Moumita Mukherjee (Amity Institute of Psychology & Allied Sciences Amity University, Kolkata)
Anindita Chaudhuri and Mallika Banerjee (Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata)

Trying to do more than one task at the same time, or more accurately, moving to-and-fro between tasks in quick temporal succession is known as multitasking. There have been some research evidence connecting factors such as age and intelligence to cognitive tasks, and some specifically of divided attention, but not many with types of visual modality computerised dual tasks, as used in the current work. Also, the previous research findings were not conclusive. The present research was aimed at exploring impact of age and intelligence on cognitive multitasking, which remains relevant in the fast-paced life of people, today. Sample consisted of 240 participants, who were either employed, i.e., working, or students/trainees, in the age range of 18-42, with a minimum of some post higher secondary education, without any notable history of physical or mental illness, i.e., did not belong to clinical populations. Results indicated that higher intelligence typically lead to better multitasking performance. The impact of age grouping, however, was very interesting, in the sense that, unlike many of the previous research in related areas, mature group of individuals performed significantly better than younger individuals in the dual tasks. No interaction effect was found. The research paper discusses possible explanations for these findings as well as potential implications for multitasking in real life.