By Bruce Bower
Cell phone users frequently drive themselves to distraction while operating cars, and all too often end up in traffic accidents. But a select few multitask behind the wheel with extraordinary skill, a new study finds.
About one in 40 drivers qualifies as a “supertasker,” able to combine driving and cell phone use without impairing performance of either activity, say psychologists Jason Watson and David Strayer, both of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. These unusual exceptions to the general rule that performance declines when a person does two things at once (SN: 3/13/10, p. 16) may offer insights into the workings of attention and mental control, Watson and Strayer propose in an upcoming Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Laboratory tests of 200 volunteers operating a driving simulator identified five extraordinary individuals. These people were good drivers: They hit the brakes quickly in response to cars that slowed in front of them and maintained a safe distance from other cars. They also excelled at solving simple math problems and remembering words heard over a hands-free cell phone when not driving. Critically, their performance on these tasks stayed just as high while driving and using cell phones at the same time.
“Supertaskers did a phenomenal job of performing several different tasks at once,” Watson says. “We’d all like to think we could do the same, but the odds are overwhelmingly against it.”
Watson and Strayer studied college students, ages 18 to 43. After learning to operate a driving simulator on a virtual highway, participants followed an intermittently braking pace car driving in the right-hand lane. For each volunteer, the researchers measured time needed to depress the brakes when the pace car slowed and distance from the pace car throughout the trip.