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Researchers Show the Developmental Trajectory of Multitasking Ability in 7 to 12-year-old Typically Developing Children

May 16, 2017

The multitasking ability, the capacity to arrange multiple tasks efficiently is important in everyday life. Everyday examples include domestic scenarios like cooking a meal or work settings like running a hotel.  

This ability is associated with the executive control and is supported by the prefrontal cortex that continuously develops from childhood to adolescence. However, how multitasking skills typically develop across childhood remains unknown. 

In order to bridge such a knowledge gap, Drs. YANG Tianxiao, WANG Ya and CHAN Raymond from the Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience (NACN) Laboratory, the CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, and their international collaborators have investigated the developmental trajectory of multitasking ability across childhood.  

Sixty-five typically developing children aged 7, 9 and 11 completed two multitasking tests across three time points within a year.  

The Six Element Test for Children (C-SET) requires children to attempt six subtasks without breaking a specific rule in 10 mins. The overall multitasking performance, the number of tasks attempted and the rule breaking behaviour are recorded.  

The Battersea Multitask Paradigm (BMP) task involves strategical arrangement and tackle of three subtasks varied in priority and them in 10 mins.  

Compared to C-SET, BMP is cognitively more demanding, and allows measurement of different aspects of multitasking ability, including rule learning, planning, plan adherence, monitoring and memory of rules. 

The results  presented that hildren between age 7 and 12 showed continuous and linear development of multitasking ability. Children as young as 7 years old were able to understand the requirements of multitasking scenarios well and arrange time for some of the required tasks.  

As children grew older, they attempted more tasks and most children attempted the majority of the required tasks by age 8. Children at age 9 could easily remember the content and sequence of the tasks that they had just performed several minutes ago.  

At age 11, the developmental pace of basic multitasking ability slowed down, whereas more sophisticated multitasking ability continued to show linear growth.  

By the age of 12, children were adept in managing multiple tasks of equal importance, whereas they were still inadequate and unsophisticated in strategically prioritizing and switching between multiple tasks with varied values.  

The developmental trajectories of cognitive components underlying multitasking also varied. Specifically, retrospective memory (e.g., the ability to remember the rules) showed a similar linear development as multitasking ability, indicating its facilitating role.  

The planning ability for complex multitasking scenarios developed slowly across age 7 to 11, suggesting that it may stand as a bottleneck for development of overall multitasking ability in the examined age range; but it also has a potential to be a driving force for further development.  

The capacity to follow plans developed slowly from the age 7 to 11, but it benefited from repeated testing in all age groups, indicating that practice and familiarity with the multitasking scenario may help improve plan adherence. 

        

Figure 1.Mean C-SET scores of three age groups across three time points. The values of Y-axis indicate the possible range of the data. The number of rule breaks ranged from 0 to no limit. The longitudinal results are represented next to the legend of each age group. The cross-sectional comparisons are indicated by brackets. * p< .05,m = marginally significant ( .05 <p< .10), n.s. = non-significant. (Image by CHAN Raymond) 

 

Figure 2.Mean BMP scores of three age groups across three time points. The longitudinal results are represented next to the legend of each age group. The cross-sectional comparisons are indicated by asterisks with brackets. * p< .05,m = marginally significant ( .05 <p< .10), n.s. = non-significant. (Image by CHAN Raymond) 

Overall, these findings not only depict the developmental trajectory of multitasking and its associated cognitive functions in children aged 7 to 12, but also reveal the age-specific characteristics of multitasking ability. These findings thus provide useful information for the development of targeted cognitive training for typically as well as atypically developing children.  

The study is now available online in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology entitled "The developmental of multitasking in children aged 7 to 12: Evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal data".

This study was supported by the Beijing Training Project for the Leading Talents in Science and Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, and the International Partnership Programme for Creative Research Teams. 

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