Multitasking People who multitask all the time may be the worst at doing two thi

Multitasking

People who multitask all the time may be the worst atdoing two things at once, a new research suggests. The findings, based onperformances and self-evaluation by about 275 college students, indicate thatmany people multitask not out of a desire to increase productivity, but becausethey are easily distracted (分心) and can’t focus on oneactivity. And “those people turn out to be the worst at handling differentthings,” said David Sanbonmatsu, a psychologist at the University of Utah.

Sanbonmatsu and his colleagues gave the students a setof tests and asked them to report how often they multitasked, how good theythought they were at it, and how sensation-seeking (寻求刺激) or imperative (冲动) they were.They then evaluated the participants’ multitasking ability with a tricky mentaltask that required the students to do simple mathematical calculations whileremembering a set of letters.

Not surprisingly, the scientists said, most peoplethought they were better than average at multitasking, and those who thoughtthey were better at it were more likely to report using a cellphone whiledriving or viewing multiple kinds of media at once. But those who frequentlydeal with many things at the same time were found to perform the worst at theactual multitasking test. They also were more likely to admit tosensation-seeking and impulsive behavior, which connects with how easily peopleget bored and distracted.

“People multitask not because it’s going to lead to greaterproductivity, but because they’re distractible, and they get sucked into thingsthat are not as important.” Sanbonmatsu said.

Adam Gazzaley, a researcher at the University ofCalifornia, San Francisco, who was not a member of the research group, said onelimitation of the study was that it couldn’t find out whether people who startout less focused   toward multitasking or whether people’srecognizing and understanding abilities change as a result of multitasking.

The findings do suggest, however, why thesensation-seeker who multitask the most may enjoy risky distracted driving.“People who are multitasking are generally less sensitive to risky situations.”said Paul Atchley, another researcher not in the group. “This may partlyexplain why people go in for these situations even though they’re dangerous.”

1. The research led by Sanbonmatsu indicates thatpeople who multitask       .

A．seek highproductivity constantly

B．preferhandling different things when getting bored

C．are morefocused when doing many things at a time

D．have thepoorest results in doing various things at the same time

2.When Sanbonmatsu and his colleagues conducted theirresearch, they          .

A．assessed themultitasking ability of the students

B．evaluated theacademic achievements of the students

C．analyzed theeffects of the participants’ tricky mental tasks

D．measured thechanges of the students’ understanding ability

3.According to Sanbonmatsu, people multitask becauseof their        _.

A．limited powerin calculation               B．interests indoing things differently

C．inability toconcentrate on one task          D．impulsivedesire to try new things

4. From the last paragraph, we can learn thatmultitaskers usually____  .

A．drive veryskillfully

B．go in fordifferent tasks

C．fail to reactquickly to potential dangers

D．refuse toexplain the reasons for their behavior

试题答案

【答案】

1.D

2.A

3.C

4.C

【解析】

文章大意：文章讲述的是一项与人们通常的观点相反的研究结果，即通常同时做多件事情的人，反而没有普通人同时处理两件事情的效率高，因为同时做多件事情的人平时更容易分心。

1.根据第一段的“People whomultitask all the time may be the worst at doing two things at once, a newresearch suggests和those people turn out to be the worst athandling different things,”可知，平时同时做多件事情的人，在研究的实验中结果表现最差。故选择D

2.根据第二段的“They then evaluatedthe participants’ multitasking ability”可知，他们是为了评估每一位参与者的多任务处理能力。

3.根据第四段“People multitask notbecause it’s going to lead to greater productivity, but because they’redistractible, and they get sucked into things that are not as important.”可知，Sanbonmatsu认为人们同时做很多件事情，不是因为他们想增加销量/产量，而是因为他们容易分心（distractible），他们很容易被不重要的事情所吸引，因此，得出结论，很多人是没有集中精力做一件事情的能力，即C选项。

4.根据最后一段的“People who aremultitasking are generally less sensitive to risky situations.”，通常同时做多件事情的人对于危险的情况没有那么敏感，也就是说他们对于危险的情况或者潜在的危险没有那么强的敏感性，或者说没有能够做出快速反应的能力，即C选项。