Human brain and multitasking

As humans, our ability is sometimes limited, for example the task performance deteriorates when we attempt to undertake two, three or more tasks at the same time, simultaneously. What is remarkable it that the extensive training of the barin cand greatly reduce such multitasking costs. Multitasking of the brain involves the prefrontal cortext. The results of many researches show how brain training cand lead to efficient multitasking. The results also provide a mechanistic account of multitasking limitations that name the poor speed of the informations processing in human prefrontal cortext. In the article Training Improves Multitasking Performace by Increasing the Speed of Information Processing in Human Prefrontal Cortext, that was published in Cell Press Journal, in 16th of July 2009. The researches made 2 experiments and they tried to show how trai ning of the brain improves multitasking performance and how the prefrontal neocortext is involved in this process. The Experimental Procedure The researchers developed 2 experiments. During theese experiments they tried to show how the brain can be trained to do multitasks. First Experiment The subjects of the first experiment were 7 right handed members of the Vanderbilt University, more exactly 4 femals and 3 males between the ages of 23-30 years old, with normal or conected to normal vision. They recived financial compensation. Experimental Overview In this experiment the subjects performed three types of session; one brief familiarization session, three fMRI sessions and eight to twelve behavioral training sessions conducted over a 2 week period. The familiarization session was intended to expose the subjects to the stimulusresponse mappings and was administered immediately preceding the first fMRI session. fMRI sessions occurred prior to the first behavioral training session (pretraining), after the third, fourth,
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or fifth behavioral training session (depending on subjects performance; midtraining), and after the final behavioral training session (posttraining). Subjects typically performed one session per day, although in a few instances two sessions were carried out in a day (morning and afternoon) to accommodate scheduling conflicts. Because subjects performed a varying number of behavioral sessions, session number for each subject was normalized from one to eight using the following formula: ROUND((session number / max(session number)) * 8) in order to facilitate subsequent analyses. For each trial in all the sessions, subjects performed either one (single-task condition) or two (dual-task condition) distinct sensory-motor tasks. Second Experiment The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effect of dual-task training on the latency of IFJ activity using time-resolved fMRI. The behavioral paradigm and fMRI data acquisition and analysis for this experiment are as described in Frist Experiment except where otherwise specified below. Subjects Four right-handed members of the Vanderbilt University community, 3 males and 1 female, between the ages of 2530 years, with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, participated in this experiment for financial compensation. These subjects did not participate to first experiment. Tasks Subjects performed identical trials to those of Experiment 1, with the sole difference that participants were only scanned pre- and posttraining in Experiment 2.

In another scientific research about brain multitasking, The functional neuroanatomy of multitasking: Combining dual tasking with a short term memory task, that was published in the Neuropsychologia Journal, in 30th July 2013, he researchers try to explore how the short time memory in involved in the multitasking brain process. Doing two things at the same time whilst trying not to forget a third one is a part of everyday life for most of us. However, this ability to effectively distribute and coordinate attentional resources to per- form multiple tasks can become impaired.

The researchers investigated how the brain combines two competing tasks, for example the dual tasking, within additional short term memory, for example multitasking. They found widespread activation in a predominantly right-sided fronto- parietal network and the cerebellum during the dual-tasking when compared to both visual and the auditory single task. As we can see what the researchers discover is that a fronto-parietal network is already active during dual tasking and it shows enhanced and more extensive activation bilaterally during multi-tasking, suggesting increased working memory demands. The additionally reported supplementary activation in the occipito-temporal cortext likely to be involved in online holding of visual stimuli in short termn memory during a longer delay. These observations allow the scientist to conclude that the paradigm that they developed effectively registres brain activation linked to multitasking, validating their paradigm. In the article, Ecological relevance determiantes task prority in older adults multitasking, that was published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Gerontology Society of America in Journals of Gerontology, in 9th of September 2013, the scientist tried to explain how the age can affect the brain multitasking process. Aging affects cognitive and motor task performance, but it is especially evident in everyday activities requiring multitasking. For example, at a busy party, normally you are holding a drink while maintaining conversation, and in many cases, people are passing behind you, disrupting your standing balance. In such activities people cannot pay attention to all tasks, and this is especially the case for older adults due to age-related decline in cognitive and sensorimotor processing. Instead, older adults are likely to prioritize one task standing balance, as in this case, because dropping a glass is not as critical as losing ones balance and falling. Objectives. The researchers say that multitasking is a challenging aspect of human behavior, especially if the concurrently performed tasks are different in nature. Several studies demonstrated pronounced performance decrements, for example the dual-task costs, in older adults for

combinations of cognitive and motor tasks. However, patterns of costs among component tasks differed across studies and reasons for participants resource allocation strategies remained elusive.
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Method The scientist investigated young and older adults multitasking of a working memory task and two sensorimotor tasks, one with low (finger force control) and one with high ecological relevance (postural control). The tasks were performed in single, dual, and triple task contexts. Results. They found out that the working memory accuracy was reduced in dual-task contexts with either sensorimotor task and deteriorated further under triple-task conditions. Postural and force performance deteriorated with age and task difficulty in dual-task contexts. However, in the triple-task context with its maximum resource demands, older adults prioritized postural control over both force control and memory. Discussion. Their results identified ecological relevance as the key factor in older adults multitasking. Everyday multitasking among three or more different tasks pervades domestic and working life, yet rarely is it the focus of empirical study or theory development. The scientist say that this form of multitasking refers to the management of several different ongoing tasks to be completed within a limited time. The tasks often must be interleaved efficiently to maximise performance, and there may be an optimum order for their completion, for example,cooking a meal or a timelimited shopping trip. In daily life many occupations require multitasking, for example, emergency medicine and medical decision making, management or navigation. The scientist report an investigation of how healthy young adults achieve everyday multitasking in a simulated environment. In the article Strategy applications disorder: the role of the frontal lobe in human multitasking, published in journal Psyhological Research at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at Univerity College from London, in 23th of July 1999, the researchers try to find out the role of the frontal lobe in human brain multitasking and try to explain what means the strategy application disorder and how this influence the multitasking process. Strategy applications disorder is a termn used to describe a pattern of deficit, usually associated with frontal lobe dysfunction, where people show disorganization and problems with

palnning and decision making everyday life despite normal performance on traditional neuropsychological tests. In another scientific article, Juggling on a high wire: Multitasking effects on performance, that was published in International Journal of Human Computer, at 21st of October 2011, the researcher talk about how performance is influenced by the multitasking process. In this study they develop a theoretical model that predicts an inverted relationship between multitasking and performance. The model is tested with a controlled experiment using a customdeveloped application. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control condition, where they had to perform tasks in sequence, or an experimental condition, where they could discretionarily switch tasks by clicking on tabs. Our results show an inverted pattern for performance efficiency (productivity) and a decreasing line for performance effectiveness (accuracy). The results of this study indicate that the nature of the relation between multitasking and performance depends upon the metric used. If performance is measured with productivity, different multitasking levels are associated with an inverted curve where medium multitaskers perform significantly better than both high and low multitaskers. However, if performance is measured with accuracy of results, the relation is a downward slopping line which increased levels of multitasking lead to a significant loss in accuracy. Metaphorically speaking, juggling multiple tasks is much more difficult while balancing on a high wire where performance mishaps can have serious consequences.