Social scientists have long assumed that it's impossible to process more than one string of information at a time. The brain just can't do it. But many researchers have guessed that people who appear to multitask must have superb control over what they think about and what they pay attention to. This seminar will report on the study conducted by Cliff Nass, Eval Ophir and Anthony Wagner to learn what gives multitaskers their edge.
Clifford Nass is Thomas M. Storke Professor of Communication., and by courtesy in Computer Science; Education; Science, Technology, and Society; Sociology; and Symbolic Systems Nass' research is informed by the notion that people's relationship with technology is fundamentally social — that is, people use the same rules and heuristics when interacting with technologies that they use when interacting with people. Experimental studies of social-psychological aspects of human-interactive media interaction in his CHIMe Lab (Communication between Humans and Interactive Media) seek to rapidly advance theory, assessment, and design of how individuals and groups behave, feel, and think, research must be general, psychologically informed, quantitatively grounded, complementary to partners, near-term informed, and broadly disseminated.