Dario Salvucci - Balancing Structure and Time in Multitasking Contexts

When people multitask, both the subtask structure and the temporal constraints of the component tasks strongly influence people’s task-switching behavior. In this talk, I will describe a new account and computational model that aims to quantify how people balance structural and temporal constraints in everyday multitasking. To validate the theory, we focus on an empirical study in which drivers performed a visual-search task while navigating a driving environment. Through examination of illustrative protocols from the model and human drivers as well as the overall fit on the aggregate glance data, we explore the implications of the theory and model for time-critical multitasking domains.