Multitasking Case

Multitasking

Aim: To find out if females are better at multitasking than males.

Hypothesis: We think that females will be better at multitasking, this is because of the way they have to live their daily lives, especially when they are older. For example handling the baby, while talking on the phone, while preparing a meal. Women were created to be able to do this and therefore we assume that they will be better at multitasking.

Method:

Test fifty females and fifty males by asking them to try pat their head and rub their stomach simultaneously.

The science behind rubbing your stomach and patting your head.

Your brain finds it very hard to do two things simultaneously. The right half of your brain controls your right side and your left hand side of your brain your left side. Depending on which side of your brain is more dominant, that will be your stronger side.

One of your hands (the weaker one) naturally wants to match what the other one is doing-- the patting hand wants to rub or the rubbing hand wants to pat. Doing two different actions does not feel natural.

So if you are good at multitasking and balancing tasks in your brain, doing two different things at once will be easier for you

Discussion

From our test, we discovered that thirty out fifty females were able to complete our test whereas only twenty-six out of fifty males were able to do so. There was not a large difference between the results of the females and males. Only four more females were able to pat their head while rubbing their stomach, simultaneously, than males.

During our testing, it came to our attention that younger males were better at patting their head while rubbing their stomach simultaneously than older males. We think this is due the fact that the younger males play more sports and therefore their co ordination is better. Also older females are better at this test because their lifestyles, like things such as motherhood, have forced them to be able to multitask so that tasks can be completed more efficiently.

We chose this specific test because we felt as though it was fair as it included aspects of coordination; 'the ability to repeatedly execute a sequence of movements smoothly and accurately.' Males are often better at coordination as they have gained these skills through sport whereas females are thought to be better at multitasking because of the tasks they are able to perform in their daily lives, and therefore the test is fair.

If we had extrapolated our test, we probably would have found that females would have obtained slightly higher results in each small test which means that overall the results of females' tests would be significantly