It's... [Interrupting] I think you should...
Go on, try again.
It's time for... [Interrupting] It's time for you and me to go and....
We all know that it’s not always easy trying to do two things at the same time,
but often we actually do it without even noticing.
Why is it sometimes easy and sometimes hard?
In this activity, you and your children will investigate
why some types of multitasking are much harder than others.
Have you ever tried to do two things at the same time?
No!
Stand on one leg, then turn this round like that.
Then you have to try and draw a 6 in the air.
Why is that so hard?
Rotating your foot in one direction and trying to rotate your arm
in the opposite direction is hard
because you are using the same part of your brain to guide both limbs.
We say that these two tasks “interfere” with each other.
So I've got some other tasks here that we can also try and do at the same time.
You’ll need six tasks all together.
We used turning your arm clockwise, turning your foot anti-clockwise,
reading, listening to someone talk, counting,
and listening to someone else count,
but you and your children could try coming up with your own.
You'll see that each one is identified as being a 'body', 'words' or 'numbers' task.
Highlight these as you go through, to get your child thinking
about whether the task's identity might have an effect.
Pick one from the top.
Moving your arm.
And pick one from the side.
Reading! OK, what I'd like you to do is read a page of your book,
whilst turning your hand round like that.
Aaah that's easy!
Go on then, show me, I bet it's not!
[Reading] Tilly and her friends...
Reading and moving your arm use different parts of your brain,
so there is less interference which makes the tasks easy to do at the same time.
Let's mark on here whether it's easy or difficult.
So you said it was Easy!
So we put a big tick here...
Record your results in a table.
This is a good way to start observing the results of your experiments,
and will also help you figure out whether there is a pattern
to which type of activities are difficult to do at the same time.
Listening to me speaking and reading at the same time.
It's... [Interrupting] I think you should...
Play around with the various combinations and ask lots of questions as you go.
Is that hard or is that easy?
Hard!
You should find that tasks of the same type, which are using the same areas of the brain,
will cause more confusion,
while tasks that use different areas of the brain are easier to perform at the same time.
You move your hands all the time and you move your feet all the time,
why is it so hard to do at the same time?
I couldn't move them the different ways!
Do you think one reason they were so difficult is that they were so similar?
You can also overcome this interference with practice.
You’ll probably find patting your head and rubbing your stomach hard at first,
but with practice it becomes easier and easier as your brain learns
to treat that particular combination as one single activity, rather than two.
We've had loads of fun today.
To find out more and find out more about the science of the experiments,
visit the Ri website [rigb.org/experimental],
and don't forget to like and subscribe!