Multitasking of young and older adults in ecologically valid scenarios

Introduction: Many daily and sports activities rely on our ability to perform multiple motor and cognitive tasks concurrently, e.g., when driving a car. Multitasking skills have been shown to decrease with advancing age, however (e.g., Verhaegen et al, 2003). Therefore, it is important to better understand age-related decay of multitasking and cognitive skills. As it is proposed that executive functions (EF) might contribute towards multitasking, particularly in old age (Baddeley, 1986), we investigate the influence of the partitioned EF systems’components (task switching, memory updating, response inhibition (Miyake et al, 2000) and dual tasking (Strobach et al, 2014)) in multitasking situations. Moreover, performance in laboratory settings seems to differ from performance in everyday life (Bock & Züll, 2013). Thus, we further aim to investigate age-related differences in multitasking skills in (virtual) realistic scenarios. Methods: Executive functions (EF: updating, inhibition, task shifting, dual-tasking) of young (20-30 years, n = 20) and older (65-75 years, n = 20) adults will be assessed with standardized laboratory tests. In addition, participants’ multitasking skills in natural scenarios will be assessed by use of two virtual-reality (VR) tasks (simulated street crossing (SC) and car driving (CD)) combined with a battery of realistic loading tasks that draw on participants’ working memory, perceptual search, reasoning and movement planning. Data are currently collected. Results: Age-related differences in the influence of EF on multitasking performance (SC and CD task) will be analyzed by regression analysis. We expect a moderate effect of EF on multitasking scores in the two VR scenarios. This effect should be stronger for older than for young participants, due to the age-related increase of cross-domain associations (e.g. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1997). Discussion: As multitasking performance might be influenced by EF, a training aiming at improving EF would be beneficial to improve Multitasking performance, particularly in older adults.