Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability
DOI: 10.3758/pbr.17.4.479
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Summary
Brief Report (Watson & Strayer, U. Utah; Psychon Bull Rev 2010, doi:10.3758/PBR.17.4.479) testing whether everyone is impaired by concurrent driving + cell-phone conversation. 200 participants performed a high-fidelity driving simulator (PatrolSim, 32-mile multilane highway with intermittently-braking pace car) under single-task and dual-task conditions; the dual task was an auditory operation-span (OSPAN) task pairing 2-5 word lists with math-verification problems. Most participants showed significant decrements on driving (brake RT, following distance) and on OSPAN (memory, math) under dual-task. However, 2.5% of the sample (5 participants, 'supertaskers') showed no decrement on any of the four primary measures and scored in the top quartile on every measure even at baseline. Monte Carlo simulations confirmed the supertasker frequency exceeded chance (p<.001).
Key finding
About 2.5% of the population (the 'supertaskers') can perform a demanding dual task (simulated driving + auditory OSPAN) with no measurable performance decrement on either task. Their frequency exceeds chance, demonstrating individual differences in executive attention and cognitive control that resist Kahneman/Pashler-style capacity-limit predictions and have implications for theories of attention and dual-task interference.
Methodology
Lab-simulator study. 200 participants ran in single-task driving, single-task OSPAN, and dual-task conditions in counterbalanced 90-min sessions on a high-fidelity PatrolSim simulator. Driving measured brake RT and following distance to a braking pace car; auditory OSPAN measured memory and math accuracy (max 74 each). Monte Carlo simulations evaluated whether the observed proportion of zero-cost participants exceeded chance.
Sample size: N=200 participants. 2.5% (5) classified as supertaskers.
Quality score: 5 / 5