From 8dafd8aec819e85fd36cbd1d6231aad24e62c31b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2022 18:21:57 -0400 Subject: Finished work from last semester --- stanzione/rev2.tex | 122 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 122 insertions(+) create mode 100644 stanzione/rev2.tex (limited to 'stanzione/rev2.tex') diff --git a/stanzione/rev2.tex b/stanzione/rev2.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b88e88 --- /dev/null +++ b/stanzione/rev2.tex @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ +% Mastery Mailing 1 +\documentclass[12pt]{apa7} +\usepackage[style=apa,backend=biber]{biblatex} +\usepackage{graphicx} +\setlength{\headheight}{15pt} + +% According to several sources, the following commands should be active +% for an APA paper, but I just hate them. +% \raggedright +% \language255 % no hyphenation +\parindent=.5in +\linespread{2} + +\shorttitle{Article Review II} + +\addbibresource{sources.bib} + +\leftheader{Rohrer} + +\begin{document} +\centerline{\textbf{Article Review II: Cognitive Control in Media +Multitaskers}} + +``Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers'' is one of a family of +studies coming out of the literature about the new impacts from +technology on our psychology. +Media multitasking is a new way of consuming media enabled by all the +screens we have access to. +Texting on a phone and watching TV or listening to music and reading an +article are becoming more ubiquitous, but we don't fully understand how +people's cognition adapts to handle new stimuli and switching quickly +between tasks. +This study is concerned with two populations as its dependent variable: +``light'' and ``heavy'' media multitaskers, whom sit one standard +deviation away from the norm on a self-report metric, the Media +Multitasking Index (a proportional metric for how often subjects +multitask) + +The authors hypothesize that these outlying levels of media multitasking +exhibit a ``distinct approach to fundamental information processing'' +and a ``breadth bias'' for working memory and task performance +\autocite{multitask}. +The authors take several measures of each group: a filtering task, an +AX-CPT task, and a memory task (two- and three-back tasks) and compare. +Remarkably, the heavy media multitaskers perform worse on every task +with ``distractors'' but their performance is otherwise statistically +similar. +The type of distractor depends on the test, but they are, generally, +environmentally extraneous information to the task at hand, and heavy +multitaskers exhibit worse ability to filter out extraneous information +or focus their attention. +They are also, surprisingly, worse at task-switching. +Heavy multitaskers on the three-back test also display a third type of +deficit: greater interference from irrelevant data stored in memory. +Together, these may evidence heavy multitaskers' lesser ability to +control their attention, compared to light multitaskers. +It is unclear, however, as of this paper, which direction the causality +of this relationship points. + +However, the paper doesn't conclude that heavy media multitaskers are +only hurt by these traits and tendencies they display. +Breadth-biased information processing means they probably have a greater +ability to be distracted by relevant information, or ``bottom-up +attentional control.'' +They are also biased towards ``exploratory, rather than exploitative,'' +information processing \autocite{multitask}. + +The authors take especial care with the metric they created, the +Multimedia Multitasking Index. +It is tested against many confounding variables to ensure the study is +well-controlled. +From a measure of a new group of participants, people high in the trait +and low in the trait had no significant difference between SAT scores, +creativity performance, personality traits, need for cognition, or +differences with gender. +The index was also normal, so the population doesn't seem to have a +bimodal or skewed distribution of multitasking tendencies. +Also in running the trial, all the tests were administered similarly +across both groups, performed in the same order on the same hardware, in +the same setting, for each participant. +This means the participants in the trial were also controlled for across +different tests (they were not conducted from independent populations). + +The first test run was a filtering task. +An array of red and blue rectangles was displayed to each participant, +and a second (changed or not) array was presented, and the participant +was asked to identify whether a red rectangle had changed orientation. +The blue rectangles were one of the distractors under which heavy +multitaskers performed worse (they performed especially poorly, compared +to light multitaskers, on the trial with only 2 red rectangles and 6 +blue rectangles). +Other tests measuring the quality of information-processing and working +memory were the two- and three-back tasks. +Participants were presented a series of letters and asked to indicate +whether the letter had been seen two or three letters ago, for the two- +and three-back tasks, respectively. + +The third task tested task-switching ability. +Heavy media multitaskers, surprisingly, performed slower on this task +than light media multitaskers. +Researchers presented a cue for the task (number or letter) and a +digit-letter pair which the participant identified as either odd/even +(for the number cue) or vowel/consonant (for the letter cue). + +Since the paper did not make conclusions on the causality of this +relationship, I would be interested to see if any research exists now +(this paper was published in 2009) on whether heavy multitasking trains +the brain or if people with an existing breadth bias in +information-processing are more prone to multitask, especially in new +media. + +\iffalse +- Hypothesis +- IV/DV +- Controls +- Results +- Conclusions +\fi + +\vfil\eject +\printbibliography +\end{document} -- cgit