It is fascinating how we live in a world that is very different from that of even a few decades ago. The changes to our world expose different abilities. I suggest a paradigm that we all have certain amount of "attention ability" and that we also have differing attention "divide abilities." A person with a high level of attention ability and a high level divide ability could effectively multitask. A more moderate attention ability with a combined moderate level of attention divide ability might be described as attention deficient disorder. A person with high attention ability but low attention divide ability would be able to do very well on some tasks. For instance, many persons who create computer code have been found to be border-line autistic. Autistics are very good at focusing on one thing such as the creation of computer code. Like computer programming, new technologies are exposing talents and abilities that may not have been useful in earlier times. I find this very Darwinian. Charlie LSU Doctoral Candidate (hopefully done soon) AWC Professor of CIS -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Sam Tilden Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 4:12 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] multitasking Technically this is incorrect! They are better able to rapidly change the focus of attention. The article is the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Sam Nancy Baym <nbaym@ku.edu> wrote:
As this is the Association of Internet RESEARCHERS, I wonder if anyone has done any Research on multitasking -- to address the interesting conjectures that a bunch of people have.
I don't have the citation, and it's not internet research, but the pscyhologist Barbara Rogoff (http://psych.ucsc.edu/faculty/brogoff/index.php?Home) has done some cross cultural work between Utah, USA and South America and shown that the South American mothers are better able to multitask than the American mothers. What she did was to bring a toy for the child to play with while she interviewed the mother that was too difficult for the child to figure out alone. The American mothers had to alternate between attending to the interview and the child, while the South American mothers (and I apologize for not remembering the country in which she was working) could do both simulatneously. Nancy _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ --------------------------------- Get your own web address for just $1.99/1st yr. We'll help. Yahoo! Small Business. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/