Multitasking is a very modern malady, with well known consequences for our productivity and wellbeing.  It can be hard to quantify just what impact it has on us when we’re in the moment, so new research from the University of Missouri is very much of interest, as they have attempted to quantify how our situational awareness suffers when we multitask.

Much of the focus of discussions on multitasking has been in an office environment, but it’s equally problematic in physical work, such as on an oil refinery, where workers need to monitor multiple gauges and systems simultaneously.  A slight change in the eye movement of that individual could result in a costly mistake being made.

The researchers have developed a method to evaluate just how well we understand our current situation, which they believe can help us to better appreciate the impact multitasking is having on us.

“An employee with poor situational awareness will miss some critical things that happen in their work area,” they explain. “If I am tired, burdened by other things, or my workload is beyond what I can handle, my awareness will go down, and there is no way to measure that in real-time.”

Measuring situational awareness

At the moment, situational awareness is often done by asking the individual concerned various questions, but it usually leads to a sub-optimal understanding.  The researchers attempted to improve matters and created a simulated multitasking environment of an oil refinery control room.

Participants in the study were asked to monitor a range of gauges and other controls on the computer screen while also responding to any unexpected events that unfolded during the experiment.

“We found a relationship between situational awareness and self-terminating visual search — or once you find a solution, you end the search,” the researchers say. “So, if a person has a good understanding about the situation, then they can directly target the cause of the problem in a short amount of time. But if they do not have good awareness, then they may spend a long time searching randomly for the cause.”

The researchers plan to take their approach out into the real world and explore whether similar results are seen in a real-life environment as in the simulation.