Individual Differences in Multitasking Ability and Adaptability

Multitasking has become increasingly prevalent in people’s personal and professional lives. Considerable research has attempted to identify the characteristics of people (i.e., individual differences) that predict multitasking ability, and more importantly, the ability to rapidly cope with changing task demands (adaptability). This question was assessed in an experiment wherein participants first completed a battery of individual differences tests of cognitive abilities, then multitasked in a flight simulator in which task difficulty was incrementally increased via three experimental manipulations. The results indicated that general aptitude and working memory predicted general multitasking ability, but spatial ability was the dominant factor for adapting to increasing difficulty in this flight simulator task. We conclude by discussing the implications and applied aspects of these findings.