After a long history of research on how our cognitive system processes two tasks, there are still discussions about whether dual-tasking always occurs serially, or also in parallel. Together with her team, JRP alumna Felice Tavera has just published a new piece of research investigating this topic.

In three experiments, the team intended to provide further evidence for both serial and parallel task processing. The results, however, lead them to argue that participants’ reaction times, and model analyses they performed on data, might not reflect parallel versus serial processing, but perhaps rather an efficient task scheduling strategy based on participants’ time expectancies regarding the occurrence of task 2 in the dual-task context. Such a strategy, they conclude, might help participants reduce the mental effort they put in processing the dual task. We congratulate the team for their important contribution!