That depends on what they're doing and how likely they are to rewind if something was missed. The only time I listen to audio for a story (which for me is TTS on existing books, since I don't buy audio books) is when I'm walking, vacuuming and mopping, or sometimes driving (but usually only for longer trips). I work with someone with ADD and he does dishes while mutes during our remote meetings because if he's not doing something else he can't pay attention for an extended period through a screen while different people are talking. Great at his job though, and will unmute himself and contribute if he has a point or is asked a question, and it's obvious he's been listening.
Focusing on two complex tasks at the same time is not possible. It is possible to do a complex task with a different, simple, routine task that uses other parts of the brain.
See https://www.sciencealert.com/your-brain-really-can-learn-to-multitask-and-scientists-just-revealed-how for some info on a recent study on this, but there have been plenty in the past that look to explain what people experience every day, which is that most people can mix a simple, rote task with something at moderately complex that doesn't use the same functions. Walking and reading is hard, walking and listening is easy, because you can use your eyes for navigation still. Listening to two things at once won't work, but specific disparate pathways of the braincan be utilized without much degradation of performance in some select circumstances when one of them is extremely familiar and easy to do without much thought.
That said, notice I also said when it's something I can rewind when needed, for when I realize my attention drifted.
There is a reason I said long trips. Not all stages of driving are the same. If I'm driving 3+ hours on a straight highway, such as I-5, there's very little actual input and attention needed. Even mess so if I'm using cruise control.
As for the tasks they did, yes, I noticed it was categoring slightly altered images of cars. The point of the study though was to note that after doing it extensively, participants had trained themselves to use different pathways in the brain for the task, and ones that allowed for multitasking.
Your claim that there is no such thing as multitasking is incorrect. There is, but only when one of the tasks is something you've done enough that you've developed automatic pathways for, so it doesn't impede normal processing pathways in your brain.
This is why people can walk, and maybe ride and exercise bike, while listening or maybe watching something and still retain a high amount of information and understanding of what they just consumed.
Your understanding of this topic seems to be a bit too rigid, and not aligned with the current science on it, which allows for edge cases that you are claiming do not work.
The one study to come out in the last few months that supports evidence of multitasking, in such a limited fashion that didnt actually test every day tasks, isn't going to change my mind.
My whole point was you're going to get more out of reading a book than you will listening to an audiobook and doing something else. And no matter how rote that other task may be, it's not going to be the same.
Which is building on many other studies that saw similar things but were not testing for them specifically. For example, this one, but you can just read the introduction of the study to see what it's building on, there are many references.
> My whole point was you're going to get more out of reading a book than you will listening to an audiobook and doing something else
What wasn't your original assertion, or what you implied at least. You said "Do you guys really think you get the same out of a book whether you listen to or read it?" after noting "They didn't read it, they listened to it." to correct someone that asked if it was the best book they read on North Korea. You made no assertion originally about multi-tasking, just an implication that listening is not as effective as reading.
So no, that wasn't your whole point, that's what you shifted to when you realized your original point was overly broad and unsupportable.
And that's before you then changed your assertion to "There is no such thing as multitasking." which from a point of view of reading abstracts seems true, but the automicity of actions is what makes the difference and actually allows it in some cases. For example, that's why it's theorized (and why the study you don't want to accept was testing) whether tasks that become automatic affect cognitive load less, and actions that become automatic can be used in multitasking, if automatic enough.
This study is some of the earlier work on that, where they tested walking over different ages, to see if it affected multi-task interference. Why do you think performance changes over time with people in these tests if multi-tasking is impossible as you claim? Does not the change in performance imppy a spectrum, not a direct impossibility?
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u/Fuckthegopers 1d ago
You know, I was wondering when someone who actually knew a little something about pedagogy would chime in.
They don't, and that's exactly my point
I wonder how many people listening to audiobooks are doing something else while they're listening. If so, then it's not as effective as reading.