h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

blank indeed...but are these exceptions exceptions or does mankind evolves it's peripheral vision and multitasking?

I don't recall anything in my optometric education about gender differences in peripheral vision. The actual field of view is not any wider in women than men - that's dictated by factors such as eyeball size, skull shape, surrounding skin folds, hairstyle and so on.

Perhaps the female brain is just more alert to signals in the periphery & better able to interpret them. Possibly women just look around more than men do. Mums have eyes in the back of their heads!

Can I honourably excuse male teachers from the inability to multitask?

B

What makes you guys think women are good multitaskers? The only people I know who can't hold a conversation while driving are women.

Don't confuse multitasking with multithreading. Multitasking is the ability to perform simultaneous tasks. Multithreading is the ability to appear to be performing simultaneous tasks by picking up active tasks (threads in computer terms) and then moving on to another task. Driving while talking is a good example of multitasking, unless you only talk at stops in traffic. Cooking breakfast is a good example of multithreading, as you pop the toast into the toaster, then turn your attention to the eggs while the toaster does its thing.

The funny thing is that we get the word multitasking from the world of PCs, and they don't multitask. They multithread.

Anyway, the only argument I've heard so far to establish the validity of this gender difference is a study that pitted the sexes in a cooking contest, and that study is flawed because:

1) Cooking is not a multitasking exercise, as I've said before. You never see a chef chopping onions and stirring soup at the same time. They start one process and then move to another.

2) Cooking is a task which is well-divided among the sexes. Men are generally lazier about household chores, and are more likely to order out than cook for themselves. While most professional cooks are male, most non-professional men merely dabble, while most non-professional women take their cooking far more seriously.

And what's my point? The more often you do something, the less you have to think about it. The guy who makes eggs and toast once a month has to think about it much more than the guy who does it once a week. The less brain power you need for one activity, the more you have available for a secondary activity.

And this is why I don't place much significance in the "driving and talking" example, either. The men I know love to drive, and the women I know generally prefer not to. The men drive many more miles and have explored more new roads, and thus need to think less about driving.

So again... what makes you think women are better multitaskers than men?

>> The funny thing is that we get the word multitasking from the world of PCs, and they don't multitask. They multi-thread. <<

Multi-tasking and multi-threading are two different things in computer terms. Multi-tasking has been around almost as long as computers. Multi-threading is a relatively new concept. In short, computers multi-task, applications multi-thread.

Cooking is a single task. Chopping onions and stirring the soup is analogous to multi-threading.

Multi-tasking is cooking the dinner, keeping the kids from killing each other, ironing the clothes and keeping the fire going while at the same time deciding what to buy for dinner to-morrow.

Donald

Nope. Unless the mother is ironing with one hand, chopping onions with another, and separating the children with a foot all at the same time, she's still multithreading.

Most mothers I've seen have the sense to put down the knife or iron before separating the kids.

Going back to perception, it should be easy enough to sort out. Predators generally have eyes at the front of their head to stay fixed on their quarry. Prey generally have eyes further to the side to watch for danger.

So, while men probably don't actually have their eyes in noticably different positions to women, in pursuit of the same goals as predators its likely that their field of vision is narrower.

But the human mind is very flexible thing early on and most of these are tendancies. If you could work out the appropriate training scheme I'm sure you could train a child to become very skillful in ways its genetically inclined not to be.

And to expand on the computers and multitasking... computers can only multitask if they have more than one processor. Otherwise, the CPU time has to be divided into threads and take turns working on each thread... much like the chef in the kitchen. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=170919

Multitasking has been available on PCs since Windows 3 and you don't need two CPUs to do it. I am afraid the writer of that article has got himself a bit confused.

It says:

>> This ability to share the CPU among multiple tasks is called multitasking, and it is a feature of the Windows operating system (and most other operating systems too). <<

which is correct.

He then goes on to talk about thread priorities. Threads don't have priorities. Most threads are event driven and take on the priority of their parent task.

Look in the Windows XP Task Manager. Click View and select Base Priority and Thread Count. You will see that these both relate to processes and each process or task has multiple threads.


http://users.actcom.co.il/~choo/lupg/tutorials/multi-thread/multi-thread.html#definition

A single CPU can only actually work on one task at a time but it switches between each one so fast that appears to be doing multiple tasks at the same time. Mechanisms within the OS allow it to return to a task and carry one from where it left of. Woman have similar mechanisms built in to there brains which allows them to put the knife down, attend to the kids, return and pick up the knife and carry on from where they left off. Not something that men are very good at.

Donald

Donald,

"A single CPU can only actually work on one task at a time but it switches between each one so fast that appears to be doing multiple tasks at the same time."

That's correct; and it may be *called* multitasking but it is obviously multithreading. The human brain on the other hand is not limited to one processor so can genuinely multitask. Nonetheless we *are* limited to one consciousness so only one task can be carried out consciously even though a number of other tasks are going on simultaneously: driving, listening to the radio, holding a conversation etc. If a person is multitasking, unless they are capable of chopping onions whilst stirring soup, it is probable that all but one of those tasks are mental. In other words, perhaps women are better at thinking about several things at once because they can think about something on an unconscious level whilst consciously thinking about something else. Men can clearly do this too, as the driving and talking example demonstrates, but men tend to focus on one task at a time while women seem to be better able to keep a number of issues in mind simultaneously and these abilities do seem to agree with our view of the roles of our prehistoric ancestors.

F

>> That's correct; and it may be *called* multitasking but it is obviously multi-threading. <<

True that the CPU is actually working on a thread. The difference is that OS controls which task is being operated on and the application controls which thread within that task is be operated on. The user can control which task are running, they can create tasks and kill them. but the user has no control over threads. Only the application can create and kill threads.

In this respect multitasking is the ability to devote some time to one task, executing a number of threads within that task and only that task, put that task on hold and devote some time to another task. Put that on hold and go onto another task executing threads within that task then returning to the first task and carrying on from where it left off.

Threads are all related to the task in hand. Tasks are completely independent of each other and bear no relationship to other tasks in process.

The driving talking example is not a very good one as they use different parts of the brain. However, how many times have you been driving and chatting to your passenger. Then come to a complex junction and had to put the conversation on hold while you negotiate the junction and carry on the conversation when you are back on the open road.

Or another example. How many times has your wife/girlfriend said to you, "Your not listening to me!" because the man is concentrating on something else and can't switch between the two tasks effectively. Whether you are thinking about something or actually doing something makes little difference, it is still using the brain.

Donald

The other day I bought a couple of t-shirts and the man at the checkout was talking on the phone (holding it under his chin) while he cashed out my stuff and bagged it and gave me my change meanwhile talking to both me and the person on the phone. I think this would be an example of multi-tasking.

I'd never heard of multi-threading before now, but it makes sense that what we often call multi-tasking isn't actually this. In most situations it seems that multi-tasking is usually not physically possible. Such as cutting up onions *and* stirring the soup.

Anyhow, interesting to learn something new!


az

Three things...

1 - I've seen plenty of women that couldn't multitask. Prime example: driving. It all comes down to being able to change gears, deal with accelerator & clutch, keep an eye out for the surrounding traffic, AND be deeply emeregd in a conversation with your in-car mates AT THE SAME TIME. (not being sexist, though: not all blokes are good at this, either!)

2 - I'm a bloke and I consider myself to be a great multitasker. Which is probably why nothing ever gets done. Or maybe I'm just not that much of a man.

3 - Being in a band, I can tell you for a fact that the one type of "humans" that can NEVER EVER multitask are BASSISTS! Whether it's those thick strings, I don't know.

Speaking of musicians, I would say that all drummers multi-task as they play several drums at once and in different ways (not to mention the cymbals). And some of them even sing at the same time!


az

Thank you, azahar. My point exactly!

Except of course that Phil Collins IS NOT NOR HAS HE EVER BEEN A DRUMMER, THAT MISERABLE OLD GIT!!! GO BACK TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE WHERE YOU BELONG, YOU FART!!! ... ohh ... ... sorry ... lost it there for a sec.

Donald,

"The driving talking example is not a very good one as they use different parts of the brain."

Well, yes, exactly. They use different parts of the brain simultaneously. That's a perfectly good example of multitasking, is it not?

F

isn't this where this discussion becomes difficult, though? I mean women are supposed to have 2 communication centres in their brains, whereas men have just 1 but instead they have 1 for spacial awareness (which women don't have?).

So surely there will be different multi-tasks for which either men or women are better suited for?

If that's true, sternermeister, then it explains the whole concept of this thread.

It doesn't quite explain why my wife thinks she's justified in shouting 'you're not listening' while I'm focused on something important like this week's Radio Times (other TV listing magazines are available) but I'm not entitled to say 'you're not concentrating' when she can't visualise a wardrobe I've designed from a pencil drawing.

F

That comes under "female logic", which would take up another thread entirely .

Of course, this could simply be another effect of the different brain construction and chemistry, not to mention hormonal differences which also affect the brain. For example, I have found that during PMT week, my already deficient spatial awareness decreases in accuracy by about 50%. Fortunately, I do most of my driving when the roads aren't busy .

Back in conv. Gosh, I’ve missed a lot.

Was having a similar conversation with my boyf last night - the difference between multitasking and multithreading. Not too bothered about what it means in PC terms but I can see why the conversation has developed like this - ie definitions. He said that he had watched women type and talk at the same time.

Personally, I can do the concentrating on many things at the same time, but generally, at any one instance, am only *doing* one task at a time. At the end of a given time period though, I have completed 4 tasks for example because they have all been interspersed.

My husband always says that he likes to concentrate on one thing at a time and get it finished, before moving on to the next thing. Although he is now getting very good at keeping the kids entertained and doing housework etc. Practice maybe

I.

PS. I can’t type and talk at the same time, but I can drive and talk at the same time.