Health Today: Women no better at multitasking than men, study finds By: Ana Sandoiu

New research has revealed that gender makes no difference in a person's ability to multitask.

Women are no better at multitasking than men, new research shows.

Whether it is the result of anecdotal evidence or gender stereotyping, the belief that women are better at multitasking than men is very prevalent.
In fact, in a 2015 survey, 80% of the respondents were convinced that women had better multitasking abilities than men.
But what does the science say?
New research busts this myth. Patricia Hirsch, from the Institute of Psychology at Aachen University in Germany, and her colleagues set out to "put this stereotype to the test."
The researchers asked 96 participants (48 men and 48 women) to take part in two types of test: a task switching one and a dual tasking one.
Hirsch and colleagues have published their findings in the journal PLOS One.

'No substantial gender differences'

The term multitasking describes the performance of a set of different tasks in a limited time period.
Engaging in multitasking requires a greater cognitive demand, as it involves a "temporal overlap of the cognitive processes involved in performing these tasks."
In other words, doing several things at the same time requires more cognitive energy than doing them one at a time.
In reality, rather than doing several things at once, the human brain switches rapidly between tasks during multitasking, which puts a strain on attention and cognitive resources.

Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326058.php