[dtran]

https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/experiment_mul... for the actual runnable experiment. Shared my results below (I'm pretty tired at the moment so don't feel my sharpest)— super curious what others got.

I've been trying to eliminate multi-tasking as much as I can, but the nature of startups day-to-day and even what seems like a single/monotask when zoomed out now often involves context switching (For say, investigating and fixing a user-reported bug, I might have to toggle between VSCode, localhost in browser + the DOM inspector or console, our bug tracker, our support ticketing tool, Slack, and sometimes the Cody window in VS Code/ChatGPT/Claude:

  RT in pure trials: 448ms
  RT in mixed trials: 710ms
  Mixing cost: 262ms
  RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 710ms
  RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 975ms
  Task-switch cost: 265ms

[dang]

Yeah it might be more fun to have that be the top link, so I've switched it from https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/multitasking.h... now. Thanks!

Interested readers should take a look at both of course.

[userbinator]

First time:

    RT in pure trials: 490ms
    RT in mixed trials: 825ms
    Mixing cost: 335ms
    RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 825ms
    RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 969ms
    Task-switch cost: 144ms

Second time (while listening to music --- I decided to do this since I've noticed it somehow decreases my latency in typing tests significantly):

    RT in pure trials: 436ms
    RT in mixed trials: 673ms
    Mixing cost: 237ms
    RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 673ms
    RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 746ms
    Task-switch cost: 73ms

Edit: third time, also while listening to music:

    RT in pure trials: 435ms
    RT in mixed trials: 608ms
    Mixing cost: 173ms
    RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 608ms
    RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 700ms
    Task-switch cost: 92ms

I suspect this "game" is also amenable to practice, and find it at least a bit weirdly addictive in the same way as Flappy Bird.

[darthrupert]

Fascinating that you're measuring milliseconds where I'm having context switches that cost me minutes to hours to days.

[userbinator]

I don't think this game is all that representative of context-switching overhead, as my 4th attempt gives evidence that this improves quickly with practice:

    RT in pure trials: 422ms
    RT in mixed trials: 611ms
    Mixing cost: 189ms
    RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 611ms
    RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 602ms
    Task-switch cost: -9ms

The "mixed trials" are naturally slower because I'm having to recognise 4 patterns instead of 2, but only by ~50%.

[dtran]

Whoa, a negative task-switch cost! I didn't take it multiple times, but it makes sense that having practice at this specific task probably improves both your overall response times and maybe more specifically improves the different trials.

What I'm curious about is whether we also get specifically good at say, task-switching between a code editor and say, Stack Overflow, over time

[rickyyean]

Here's mine on first-try:

  RT in pure trials: 463ms
  RT in mixed trials: 833ms
  Mixing cost: 369ms

  RT in task-repeat trials (in mixed blocks): 833ms
  RT in task-switching trials (in mixed blocks): 1040ms
  Task-switch cost: 207ms