Do not mind the brain, it is just doing its jobs
Keith S. Taber
Can Prof. Dux's brain really not multitask?
I was listening to a podcast where Professor Paul Dux of the University of Queensland said something that seemed to me to be clearly incorrect – even though I think I fully appreciated his point.
"why the brain can't multitask is still very much a topic of considerable debate"
Prof. Paul Dux
The podcast was an episode of the ABC radio programme All in the Mind (not to be confused with the BBC radio programme All in the Mind, of course) entitled 'Misadventures in multitasking'
The argument against multitasking
Now mutlitasking is doing several things at once – such as perhaps having a phone conversation whilst reading an unrelated email. Some aspects of the modern world seem to encourage this – such as being queued on the telephone (as when I was kept on hold for over an hour waiting to get an appointment at my doctor's surgery – I was not going to just sit by the phone in the hope I would eventually get to the top of the queue). Similarly 'notifications' that seek to distract us from what we are doing on the computer, as if anything that arrives is likely to be important enough for us to need immediate alerting, add little to the sum of human happiness.1
Now I have heard the argument against multitasking before. The key is attention. We may think we are doing several things at once, but instead of focusing on one activity, completing, it, then shifting to another, what multitaskers actually do is continuously interrupt their focus on one activity to refocus attention on the another. The working memory has limited capacity (this surely is what limits our ability to reflectively multitask?), and we can only actually focus on one activity at a time, so multitasking is a con – we may think we are being more productive but we are not.
Now, people do tire, and after, say 45 minutes at one task it may be more effective to break, do something unrelated, and come back to your work fresh. If you are writing, and you break, and take the washing out of the machine and hang it up to dry, and make a cup of tea, and then come back to your writing fifteen or twenty minutes later, this is likely to be ultimately more productive than just ploughing on. You have been busy, not just resting, but a very different kind of activity, and your mind (hopefully) is refreshed. If you have been at your desk for 90 minutes without a break, then go for a walk, or even a quick lie down.
That however, is very different from doing your writing, as you check your email inbox, and keep an eye on a social media feed, and shop online. You can only really do one of those things at a time and if you try to multitask you are likely to quickly tire, and make mistakes as you keep interrupting your flow of concentration. (So, if you have been doing your writing, and you feel the need to do something else, give yourself a definite period of time to completely change activity, and then return fully committed to the writing.)
Now, I find that line of argument very convincing and in keeping my with own experience. (Which is not to say I always follow my own advice, of course.) Yet, I still thought Prof. Dux was wrong. And, indeed, there is one sense in which I would like to think deliberate reflective multitasking is not counterproductive.
If your brain cannot multitask you'd perhaps better hope it focuses on breathing
The brain is complex…
This is a short extract from the programme,
Paul Dux: Why the brain can't multitask is still very much a topic of considerable debate because we have these billions of neurons, trillions of synaptic connections, so why can't we do two simple things at once?
Sana Qadar: This is Professor Paul Dux, he's a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Queensland. He takes us deeper into what's going on in the brain.
Paul Dux: A lot of people would say it's because we have these capacities for attention. The brain regions that are involved in things like attention are our lateral prefrontal cortex. You have these populations of neurons that respond to lots of different tasks and multiple demands. That of course on one hand could be quite beneficial because it means that we are able to learn things quickly and can generalise quickly, but maybe the cost of that is that if we are doing two things at once in close temporal proximity, they try to draw on the same populations of neurons, and as a result leads to interference. And so that's why we get multitasking costs.
Sana Qadar: Right, so that's why if you are doing dishes while chatting to a friend, a dish might end up in the fridge rather than the cupboard where it's supposed to go.
Paul Dux: That's right, exactly.
Paul Dux talking to Sana Qadar who introduces 'All in the mind'
Now I imagine that Prof. Dux is an expert, and he certainly seemed authoritative. Yet, I sensed a kind of concept-creep, that led to a category error, here.
A category error
A category error is where something is thought of or discussed as though a member of an inappropriate class or category. A common example might be gender and sex. At one time it was widely assumed that gender (feminine-masculine) was directly correlated to biological sex (female-male) so terms were interchangeable. It is common to see studies in the literature which have looked for 'sex differences' when it seems likely that the researchers have collected no data on biological sex.
Models that suggest that the 'particles' (molecules, ions, atom) in a solid are touching encourage category errors among learners: that such quanticles are like tiny marbles that have a definite surface and diameter. This leads to questions such as whether on expansion the particles get larger or just further apart. (Usually the student is expected to think that the particles get further apart, but it is logically more sensible to say they get larger. But neither answer is really satisfactory.)
If someone suggested that a mushroom must photosynthesise because that is how plants power their metabolism then they would have made a category error. (Yes, plants photosynthesise. However, a mushroom is not a plant but a fungus, and fungi are decomposers.)
The issue here, to my mind (so to speak) was the distinction between brain (a material object) and conscious mind (the locus of subjective experience). Whilst it is usually assumed that mind and brain are related (and that mind may arise, emerge from processes in the brain) they may be considered to relate to different levels of description. So, mind and brain are not just different terms for the same thing.
So, it is one thing to claim that the mind can only be actively engaged in one task at a time, but that is not equivalent to suggesting this is true of the brain that gives rise to that mind.2
Prof. Dax seemed to be concerned with the brain:
"the brain…billions of neurons, trillions of synaptic connections… brain regions…lateral prefrontal cortex…populations of neurons"
Yet it seems completely unfounded to claim that human brains do not multitask as we surely know they do. Our brains are simultaneously processing information from our eyes, our ears, our skin, our muscles, etc. This is not some kind of serial process with the brain shifting from one focus to another, but is parallel processing, with different modules doing different things at the same time. Certainly, we cannot give conscious attention to all these inputs at once, so the brain is filtering and prioritising which signals are worth notifying to head office (so to speak). We are not aware of most of this activity – but then that is generally the case with our brains.
The brain controls the endocrine system. The brain stem has various functions, including regulating breathing and heart rate and balance. If the brain cannot multitask we had perhaps better hope it focuses on breathing, although even then I doubt we would survive for long based on that activity alone.
Like the proverbial iceberg, most of our brain activity takes place below the waterline, out of conscious awareness. This is not just the physiological regulation – but a lot of the cognitive processing. So, we consolidate memories and develop intuitions and have sudden insights because our brains are constantly (but preconsciously) processing new data in the light of structures constructed through past experience.
If you are reading, you may suddenly notice that the room has become cold, or that the doorbell is ringing. This is because although you were reading (courtesy of your brain), your brain was also monitoring various aspects of the environment to keep alert for a cue to change activity. You (as in a conscious person, a mind if you like) may not be able to do two things at once, so your reading is interrupted by the door bell, but only because your brain was processing sensory information in the background whilst it was also tracking the lines of text in your book, and interpreting the symbols on the page, and recalling relevant information to provide context (how that term was defined, what the author claimed she was going to demonstrate at the start of the chapter…). Your mind as the locus of your conscious experience cannot multi-task, certainly, and certainly "brain regions that are involved in…attention" are very relevant to that, but your brain itself is still a master of multitasking.
Me, mybrain, and I
So, if the brain can clearly multitask, can we say that the person cannot multitask?
That does not seem to work either. The person can thermoregulate, digest food, grow hair and nails, blink to moisten the eye etc., etc as they take an examination or watch a film. These are automatic functions. So, might we say that it is the body, not the person carrying out those physiological functions? (The body of the person, but not the person, that is.)
Yet, most people (i.e., persons) can hold a conversation as they walk along, and still manage to duck under an obstruction. The conversation requires our direct attention, but walking and swerving seem to be things which we can do on 'autopilot' even if not automatic like our heartbeat. But if there was a complex obstruction which required planning to get around, then the conversation would likely pause.
So, it is not the brain, the body, or even the person that cannot multitask, but more the focus of attention, the stream of consciousness, the conscious mind. Perhaps confusion slips in because these distinctions do not seem absolute as our [sic] sense of identify and embodiment can shift. I kick out (with my leg), but it is my leg which hurts, and perhaps my brain that is telling me it is hurting?
Meanwhile, my other brain was relaxing
There is also one sense in which I regularly multitask. I listen to music a lot. This includes, usually, when I am reading. And, usually, when I am writing. I like to think I can listen to music and work. (But Prof. Dux may suggest this is just another example of how humans "are not actually good at knowing our own limitations".)
I like to think it usually helps. I also know this is not indiscriminate. If I am doing serious reading I do not play music with lyrics as that may distract me from my reading. But sometimes when I am writing I will listen to songs (and, unfortunately for anyone in earshot, may even find I am singing along). I also know that for some activities I need to have familiar music and not listen to something new if the music is to support rather than disturb my activity.
Perhaps I am kidding myself, and am actually shifting back and forth between
| being distracted from my work by my music | and | focusing on my work and ignoring the music. |
I know that certainly sometimes is the case, but my impression is that usually I am aware of the music at a level that does not interfere with my work, and sometimes the music both seems to screen out extraneous noise and even provides a sense of flow and rhythm to my thinking.
I suspect this has something to do with brain lateralisation and how, in a sense, we all have two brains (as the hemispheres are to some extent autonomous). Perhaps one of my hemispheres is quietly (sic) enjoying my music whilst the other is studiously working. I even fancy that my less verbal hemisphere is being kept on side by being fed music and so does not get bored (and so perhaps instigate a distracting daydream) whilst it waits for the other me, its conjoined twin, to finish reading or writing.
I may well be completely wrong about that.
Perhaps I am just as hopeless at multitasking with my propensity to attempt simultaneous scholarship and music appreciation as those people who think they can monitor social media whilst effectively studying.3 Perhaps it is just an excuse to listen to music when I should be working.
But even if that is so, I am confident my brain can multitask, even if I cannot.
Work cited:
- Taber, K. S. (2013). Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education: Developing representations of concepts, conceptual structure and conceptual change to inform teaching and research. Dordrecht: Springer.
Note:
1 The four minute warning, perhaps. But,
- Apple are releasing a new iPhone next spring?
- Another email has arrived inviting me to talk at some medical conference on a specialism I cannot even pronounce?
- A fiend of a friend of a friend has posted some update on social media that I can put into Google translate if I can be bothered?
- Someone I do not recall seems to have a job anniversary?
- Someone somewhere seems to have read something I once wrote (and I can find out who and where for a fee)?
Luckily I have been notified immediately as now I know this I will obviously no longer wish to complete the activity I was in the middle of.
2 One could argue that when a person is conscious (be that awake, or dreaming) one task the brain is carrying out is supporting that conscious experience. So, anything else a brain of a conscious person is doing must be an additional task. Perhaps, the problem is that minds carry out tasks (which suggests an awareness of purpose), but brains are just actively processing?
3 As a sporting analogy for the contrast I am implying here, there is a tradition in England of attending international cricket matches, and listening to the 'test match special' commentary (i.e., verbal) on the radio while watching (i.e. visual) the match. This seems to offer complementary enhancement of the experience. But I have also often seen paying spectators on televised football matches looking at their mobile phones rather than watching the match.