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Updated: May 17, 2025
07:00
Measuring the Switch Cost of Smartphone Use While Walking
Published on: April 30, 2020
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Identifying individual cost-balancing strategies when self-organizing task switching.
Irina Monno1, Philipp Dahlinger2, Jeff Miller3
1Department of Psychology, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg.
Summary
People use distinct local or global strategies for task switching, balancing waiting times against performance costs. These task selection preferences are stable and individually consistent.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- Individuals employ varied strategies to manage multitasking demands.
- Task switching research explores how people balance time costs and performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate individual task selection behavior in a self-organized task switching paradigm.
- To provide empirical evidence for local and global task selection strategies.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments used a task switching paradigm with a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) delay for task repetition.
- Participants' switch SOAs (waiting times) and switch costs (performance) were analyzed.
- The expectation-maximization method statistically confirmed observed behavioral patterns.
Main Results:
- Participants exhibited two distinct strategies: local (switch SOA ≈ switch costs) and global (switch SOA < switch costs).
- Global strategy users anticipated reduced future waiting times from task switching.
- Individual strategy preferences were stable across experimental conditions.
Conclusions:
- Individuals possess stable, preferred strategies for managing task switching costs.
- Findings support the existence of distinct local and global task selection strategies.
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