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Description

The purpose of this study was to examine how well individuals can divide their attention between two tasks and to test the limits of multitasking. Based on previous research, attention is considered a limited resource, which means that multitasking can result in a decline in performance. Therefore, to further investigate this, our group designed an experiment in which we compare performance on a single task condition vs a dual-task condition. In the baseline condition, participants completed a visual search task in which they identified whether a red “T” was present among distractor letters (green “T’s” and red “L’s”). Reaction time and accuracy were recorded as measures of performance. In the dual-task condition, participants completed the same visual search task while also responding to an auditory distractor task. Specifically, they were instructed to press the spacebar when they heard a high-pitched tone and ignore low-pitched tones. We predicted that participants in the dual-task condition would show slower reaction times and lower accuracy compared to the baseline condition due to divided attention. By comparing these conditions, we aimed to determine whether multitasking leads to measurable performance costs. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of attentional limits and have real-world implications for everyday situations such as driving while using a phone. Overall, this experiment highlights the challenges of multitasking and supports the idea that attention cannot be effectively divided without a decrease in performance.

Publication Date

4-30-2026

Attention Overload: What Happens When We Try to Multitask?

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