TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hirsch, Patricia
A1  - Koch, Iring
A1  - Karbach, Julia
T1  - Putting a stereotype to the test : the case of gender differences in multitasking costs in task-switching and dual-task situations
T2  - PLoS one
N2  - According to a popular stereotype, women are better at multitasking than men, but empirical evidence for gender differences in multitasking performance is mixed. Previous work has focused on specific aspects of multitasking or has not considered gender differences in abilities contributing to multitasking performance. We therefore tested gender differences (N = 96, 50% female) in sequential (i.e., task switching) and concurrent (i.e., dual tasking) multitasking, while controlling for possible gender differences in working memory, processing speed, spatial abilities, and fluid intelligence. Applying two standard experimental paradigms allowed us to test multitasking abilities across five different empirical indices (i.e., performance costs) for both reaction time (RT) and accuracy measures, respectively. Multitasking resulted in substantial performance costs across all experimental conditions without a single significant gender difference in any of these ten measures, even when controlling for gender differences in underlying cognitive abilities. Thus, our results do not confirm the widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking than men at least in the popular sequential and concurrent multitasking settings used in the present study.
KW  - Cognition
KW  - Working memory
KW  - Cognitive psychology
KW  - Attention
KW  - Intelligence tests
KW  - Intelligence
KW  - Mental health and psychiatry
KW  - Reaction time
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50645
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-506458
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2019 Hirsch et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 14
IS  - (8): e0220150
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -