If you’ve ever accused your partner of not listening while they’re busy doing something else, science may finally have your back.
Researchers have found men are more than twice as likely as women to ignore someone speaking to them while multitasking.
Researchers developed an experiment designed to mimic real–life multitasking including cooking, searching for information, monitoring words and holding a conversation.
Overall, they discovered both men and women performed equally well across almost every task.
However, men struggled to hold a conversation when their attention was focused elsewhere.
‘In an everyday–life mimicking multitasking scenario, women performed significantly better in the conversation task than men,’ the team wrote in the journal Psychological Research.
‘Such performance differences can potentially explain the development of a stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men.’
The researchers said it could be that men deem conversation as less important than other tasks they are doing. Or, due to their focus on other tasks, it’s possible they miss questions completely.
While men and women performed equally well across almost every task, women were much better at holding a conversation while busy
There is a widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men. Pictured: Assistant Andy Sachs juggling a million tasks in The Devil Wears Prada
For the first part of the study, 78 men and women completed a range of tasks while researchers measured their performance.
For the conversation task, participants were played pre–recorded questions at 20–second intervals while they were also doing something else.
Most questions were phrased in a way to invite longer answers – for example, ‘Would you rather always be 10 minutes late or 20 minutes early?’
Participants were asked to answer the questions properly as if they were part of a conversation and to avoid one–word answers.
Analysis revealed there was a ‘significant difference’ in performance between sexes in the conversation task.
On average, women answered 24.76 out of the 28 questions while men answered 20.24 questions.
‘In other words, females did not answer 11.6 per cent of questions while males did not answer more than twice as many questions, namely 27.7 per cent’, the team said.
Despite this, the scientists discovered that when men did answer, the quality of their answers was on par with women.
Researchers developed an experiment designed to mimic real–life multitasking including cooking, searching for information, monitoring words and holding a conversation
A second study found that observers watching videos of the participants could detect this difference in conversational behaviour.
They also rated men as being less in control of the task, performing worse, using less effort, being less alert, less happy and enjoying the task less than women.
The authors suggest that women, on average, may engage more in communicative behaviour in social contexts.
These findings are in line with evolutionary theories that propose a greater propensity for conversational behaviour among women.
It could also explain the development of the widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men.
‘Reduced verbal communication among males during complex multitasking might have important workplace implications, especially in roles that depend on effective verbal interaction,’ the paper says.
‘While standardized procedures, such as those between pilots and control towers, are well–trained, reduced speech may be problematic in novel or critical situations.’
The team added that reduced communication may be perceived as impolite or even rude.
Information transfer between parts of the brain during multitasking. Scientists have previously found that the ability to juggle a few things at once can be improved
A previous study found that the ability to multitask can actually be improved with practice.
Australian neuroscientists compared the brain activity of 100 healthy adults before and after a week of practising two tasks at once.
They discovered people improved thanks to a boost to the information transfer between a round structure within the brain called the putamen and the organ’s outer regions.
‘Humans show striking limitations in information processing when multitasking, yet can modify these limits with practice,’ said the study authors from the University of Queensland, Australia.
